


The Mouths of Children

by maychorian



Series: Entertaining Angels [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Angst, De-Aged Dean Winchester, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 18:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 24,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19178644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maychorian/pseuds/maychorian
Summary: "We still have work for you to do, Dean Winchester," Castiel said solemnly, doing his utmost not to sigh. "This is bullshit," Dean declared in his shockingly high, clear voice. "I want ice cream."Semi-sequel to Entertaining Angels, original flavor, but stands alone.Originally posted to ff.n on 03-07-09.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please be aware that this fic has been abandoned at 13 chapters and it is highly unlikely that I will be writing more. It kind of ends on a cliffhanger, too, so I'm sorry. Still a fun read, though, I think.

The hospital smelled like cabbage. Castiel wrinkled his nose, feeling the skin between his eyebrows furrow. Was it supposed to be a healing scent, soothing to those suffering here as well as their family members? Humans were so strange.

"Oh, there you are." The frazzled voice drooped in relief toward the end, and Castiel looked up. Sam Winchester's dark-eyed demon girl stood in the doorway of the waiting area, not quite smiling at him but not regarding him with hostility, either. Her hair was ruffled and mussed, her makeup smudged, her eyes ringed with shadow. It was the look of a soldier watching the arrival of long-awaited reinforcements after a fierce and bloody battle.

"Yes, here I am," Castiel said. "I must admit that I was quite surprised by your summons. What is that you desired my help with? I'm especially curious about why you were so adamant that I come and not any of my brothers."

"Well, I'd think it would be obvious," Ruby said, gesturing to her side. Which meant that she was gesturing at empty air.

Castiel merely tilted his head questioningly.

Ruby furrowed her brow in confusion, then looked to her side and saw that nothing was there. "Dammit!" A petulant stamp of the petite foot. "Damn kid running off all the damn time and won't stand still for a damn minute, damn it all..."

She took off down the hall, still muttering obscenities under her breath. Castiel hesitated, then followed, business shoes tramping sharply on the hospital linoleum. Already he was suppressing the urge to sigh. He had a sinking suspicion that he would be doing that a lot over the course of this mission.

He caught up with Ruby at a nurse's station, where she was scolding a little boy who sat on the desk, swinging his legs and sucking on an enormous lollipop. Castiel halted in confusion a few feet away, watching. The boy looked to be about six or seven years old, fair haired, skinny and a bit ragged around the edges, dressed in a t-shirt that was far too big for him and a pair of scrub pants with pictures of kittens and ducklings. Ruby waved her arms in the air, ordering him never to run away from her again, and the child shrugged unrepentantly, his eyes hard and glittering.

"I hope you realize that this is going to kill me," Ruby finished breathlessly, jabbing her finger at the kid's face one last time, though she was very careful not to actually touch him. "Just  _kill_  me. I'll drop dead of exhaustion and it'll be all your fault."

"Serve you right, you skanky ho," the boy said in a clear, sweet voice. "I won't feel bad at all."

Castiel felt his mouth open involuntarily. There was no mistaking that tone and diction.

"Maybe  _you_  won't," Ruby seethed, "But how do you think Sam will feel? Who's going to look after things if I'm gone and you're...this?"

The boy shut his lips tight at that, holding the lollipop in one sticky fist. His big green-brown eyes started to well with tears.

"Oh, don't..." Ruby pleaded helplessly, her shoulders slumping and hands falling to her sides. "Don't...don't do that, Dean..."

The nurse behind the desk, who had been watching the entire exchange up till now with fond indulgence, glared at the demon girl. Castiel took a step forward, though he really didn't know what he thought he was going to do to remedy this. And then the dam broke, and little Dean began to sob.

"You're  _mean!_  Where's Sammy? I want Sammy!"

Ruby heaved a deep sigh and dropped her head into her hands. Castiel, though, didn't hesitate. He remembered this, through memories distorted and indistinct. There was only one thing to do.

The angel took the final two steps to reach the desk and drew the wailing child into his arms, snugging him tight to his chest. "Everything is all right, Dean. You're going to be fine. It's okay." He had to think hard to remember the other words. Oh yes. "Little buddy. Kiddo. Sweetheart."

He was afraid that Dean would not recognize him, remembering how these transformations tended to play havoc with one's memories, but the boy cried his name with a sort of hysterical relief. "Cas!"

He flung his little arms around the man's neck and squeezed him hard and tight. Castiel repressed another sigh when he felt the damp, hard thump at the back of his head that meant he now had a lollipop thoroughly stuck in his hair. At least the boy knew him and accepted his company.

"Cas!" The child sniffled into his ear, squeezing even tighter. It was a good thing that Castiel didn't strictly  _need_  to breathe. "I want Sammy. Can we go see Sammy?"

Castiel looked up at Ruby, even more confused than before. "Did something happen to Sam?"

She took a deep breath, then nodded wearily. "Why do you think we're here?"

Dean loosened his grip just enough so that he could glare at her over his shoulder. "Because you screwed everything up, she-witch from hell."

The nurse behind the desk made a scandalized tutting noise and seemed to be regretting sharing her lollipops with this foul-mouthed scamp. Castiel said nothing. It was a perfectly accurate description.

"Take me to Sam," he said.

X

Sam Winchester lay still and pale in the hospital bed, surrounded by tubes and wires. Dean rested on Castiel's right hip, arms still wrapped around his neck, sniffing lightly as he stared at his brother. On the other side of the bed, Ruby looked just as morose as Dean sounded.

"What happened?" Castiel asked, turning his head to speak softly to the little boy.

Dean's small face wrinkled up, his bottom lip sticking out. "I don'... I don' remember, 'zactly. But I know it was her fault." He glared at Ruby, who tried to return the favor but ended up just looking exhausted and miserable.

"And how were you transformed into a child?"

"That was  _def_ -nitely her fault."

Castiel looked back to Ruby, who rolled her eyes hugely but did not disagree. "I do not understand. Please explain the situation to me."

"Do you really need to know? It's a SNAFU, totally FUBAR. Isn't that enough?"

"Yes, I need to know. Tell me what happened."

Castiel put just a touch of power into the words, the sternness that was never far beneath the surface of compassion and curiosity he preferred to live in. Ruby's hair blew in a sudden breeze and she took a step back, paling, as the lights flickered and the tubes hanging from the IV stand by Sam's bed swayed and creaked. Dean made a sound of appreciative wonderment and tightened his sticky grip on the shoulder of Castiel's coat, pressing himself closer to the angel who held him warm and safe at his side, in the center of the burst of power and therefore untouched by it.

"Sam and I were...working," Ruby said. She spoke slowly, reluctant but unable to resist the command. "It was...something went wrong. He pushed too hard, found a wall that shouldn't have been there, or something pushed back. I don't know, I'm not a psychic. Anyway, he collapsed. I didn't know what to do, so I brought him to the hospital, figuring at least they could keep him hydrated and stuff. They called the next-of-kin number in his wallet without me knowing. And then Dean was here, of course, yelling his head off and threatening to kill me and generally acting like a jackass."

Dean nodded thoughtfully, his soft, fluffy hair brushing Castiel's neck. "Yeah, I 'member that part." He squinted at Ruby, young voice impossibly hard and certain. "I'm still going to kill you. Soon as I figure out how. Pinky swear."

Castiel was beginning to understand what had happened, he thought. "And then you did this?"

"It was an accident!" Ruby waved her hands in the air, voice cracking on the last word. She seemed utterly sincere. "I just...I yelled back, said, 'Quit acting like a little kid, Dean! If you can't be an adult about this you shouldn't even be here.' And then I felt it go out of me, you know, a burst of spell-craft. I didn't even incant anything or use any rituals or anything, I'd swear it on a stack of Bibles. But I remember that feeling of using magic, that strength, the ability to do anything you want to do no matter how crazy or selfish or messed up. It's wild and yeah, okay, it's dark, and sometimes it's all you can do to hold onto it and just try to channel it where you mean it to go."

Castiel nodded solemnly, though he didn't understand that kind of power, not at all. The power he received from his Father was exactly the opposite of that—immense and terrifying, certainly, but the very embodiment of control, light, selflessness. An angel never used this Grace for their own gain, but only to serve God's purposes, to protect His saints or fight His battles.

"And so it was not with malicious intent that you changed Dean into a helpless child, yes?"

Ruby nodded frantically. "I didn't mean to hurt him." She looked at Dean, then, begging him to believe her. "Honest, Dean, I didn't. Sam would kill me if I ever did anything to hurt you. I just...I don't know. I wanted you to get out of the way."

Dean trembled in Castiel's arms, and the angel could feel the child's tears swelling up yet again. The little boy's voice was choked and wavering. "People allus want me outta the way. 'M not worth the trouble, huh?"

Ruby shrugged helplessly, reaching out her hands in a gesture of surrender. "C'mon, Dean, don't... Don't cry, okay? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you like this."

Castiel pulled the boy closer to him and rubbed his back, small and shaking under the thin material of his shirt.  _Like this,_  yes. He remembered, though not clearly, what it was like to be a child. Weak and little and dependent on the adults around you for everything from food to permission to use the toilet, quick to emotion and powerless to control what rose inside at the slightest provocation, whether it was joyful or despairing or maddening. The entire experience was frustrating and exhausting, and he couldn't blame Dean at all for being so moody.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked Ruby, careful to make his face open and sincere, holding back his angelic power so that only himself, only Castiel, remained. "Dean and Sam gave their all to assist me when I was in similar straits, and I will do whatever I can to return the favor."

For the first time Ruby perked up, looking almost hopeful. "Can you just...change him back?"

Castiel turned his head to look at Dean, and found the child already staring back at him. A quick prayer, sending a request to the Throne, and a quick reply. "No."

"Why not?" Without knowing better, he might have said that Ruby was a child herself, her voice was so shrill and whining. "You have all that power—can't you do practically anything?"

"It is not God's will."

Dean sighed heavily, then put his little head down on Castiel's shoulder, surprisingly sweet and endearing. Below, one of his small, bare feet kicked at the man's thigh. "Stupid God," he muttered.

Castiel frowned, but chose to leave that alone for now. He continued to look at Ruby. "It is your task to mend what you have broken. However, I am still here. Is there anything else I can do?"

"Well, if you could look after Dean and just, y'know, keep him out of my hair, that would be great. I'll try to figure out how to help Sam and how to change him back." Ruby bit her lip. "And if you would refrain from sending me back to hell, that would be helpful, too."

Castiel nodded. "This sounds reasonable. I will...what do the humans call it? I will 'babysit.'"

Dean muttered some more and kicked his leg a little harder, but Castiel found it easy to ignore.

Ruby nodded gratefully. "Do you have any money? He needs...he needs shoes. And stuff."

Castiel glanced down at his coat, patting the flat pockets, then opened one side to look at his shirt. Nothing there, either. Ruby made an exasperated noise. "Oh, never mind. Here."

He looked up and saw that she was holding a flat piece of plastic across the bed. When he just stood there staring, she jerked her head toward him and waved it around. "Take it. It's a credit card. Dean will know how to use it."

Castiel gingerly took the thin plastic and stared at it, trying to comprehend what all those little numbers were supposed to mean. Dean made an appreciative noise and grabbed it from his hand. "Ooh, Ruby, you got a platinum. Sweet action." He turned his head to look into Castiel's face, green eyes imperious and bright. "I want a slinky. They got all those stairs leading up from the lobby, and it makes me really want a slinky. Can we get a slinky?"

"I...suppose." Castiel carefully retrieved the card and placed it in the pocket of his white button-down shirt, folding his coat back over it to protect it from tiny, sticky fingers. "Are you hungry? We could retrieve some breakfast."

Dean's eyes widened suddenly, as if he hadn't realized it until just now.  _"Yes._  I'm starving. I want chocolate chip pancakes and orange juice and sausage and bacon and a fruit cup with whip cream and strawberry milk and waffles and toast with jam and butter and some eggs."

"Mmm. You may find that your new stomach cannot handle as much as your adult stomach could."

"No way, dude." Dean shook his head fiercely. "'M a championship eater. My daddy says so." He wrapped one arm around his stomach and bent over at the waist, pushing his forehead against Castiel's bicep. "C'mon, let's  _go,_  before I freakin' die, here!"

"Very well." Castiel gave Ruby a nod and headed for the door.

"Um, Cas?" Ruby called hesitantly before he could step foot in the hall. Castiel turned back, raising one eyebrow. She gestured awkwardly at the back of her own head. "You have...uh. You have a sucker in your hair."

"Oh." Castiel reached up one hand to inspect the lollipop buried in his hair. "I will...deal with it."

She nodded, dark eyes wide and sympathetic, and Castiel and Dean went on their way.

It didn't occur to him till much later that the demon girl had gotten exactly what she wanted. Dean was very much out of her way, now, and she had Sam all to herself.


	2. Chapter 2

First stop was the bathroom to get lollipop out of Castiel's hair. Dean sat beside the sink on the cold marble counter, splitting his time between shifting uncomfortably and staring into his companion's face. Castiel wet some paper towels with warm water and did his best to melt the candy out of his tangled locks, thinking about what to do next. Food or clothes? He wasn't used to prioritizing these sorts of things. Usually it was more like picking which demon to destroy first, or trying to decide which seal was in the most immediate danger and where the angelic troops should be posted so as best to oppose Lilith.

"You have nice eyes," Dean said, still staring fixedly.

"Thank you, Dean." Castiel gave the lollipop an experimental tug. Still stuck. "Though these eyes actually belong to my vessel."

Dean shook his head, green eyes wide and unblinking. "No, I think they're yours. You had the same eyes when you were a kid, too."

"You may be choosing to interpret these details in a manner that pleases you, rather than one that truly suits the facts."

"Whatever." Dean sighed loudly and swung his legs, hands hanging limp in his lap. "Can we go now? I'm bored."

"We can go as soon as I disentangle this lollipop. It is incumbent upon me to care for my vessel as much as is practical." Castiel gave it another pull. Finally starting to come loose.

Dean stood up on the counter and leaned over to have a look, one small hand resting on Castiel's shoulder. "I'll get it for ya."

A sudden sharp, hard pain in Castiel's scalp, and Dean presented him with the sucker, still fuzzy with clumped black hairs. The little boy grinned broadly, eyes bright and shining. "See? Toldja I'd get it."

"Ah." Castiel took the lollipop from him and stared at it thoughtfully. It was purple.

"Can I have it back? Still hungry, here."

Castiel considered. He was pretty sure that most humans would view that as a distinctly unsanitary practice. "No. Your small body needs better nutrition than sugar, grape flavoring, and hair."

Dean plopped grumpily down on the counter. "Fine. We'd better go to the hospital cafeteria, then. I'm still wearing the kitty pants that nurse gave me." He plucked at the knee of his scrub pants, small face sour.

Castiel nodded, grateful that the decision had been made. "That sounds like a good idea."

Dean beamed at him.

Castiel was unable to resist smiling back. Really, it took so little to make the child happy. Listening to his opinions, treating him seriously. This wasn't so hard. Castiel reached out to lift Dean into his arms again, but the boy leaned back, hands up to keep him away.

"Hey, man, lay off! I can walk!"

"You don't have any shoes." Castiel frowned down at the dirty feet, the wiggling toes. Human feet were so fragile. They needed protection.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but unlike  _some_  randomly kidified people I could mention,  _I_  have calluses." He lifted his foot in proof, all but shoving it into Castiel's face. "I can walk."

Castiel tilted his head, then swept his hand toward the door. "As you wish."

The boy hitched forward as if to jump down, then glanced nervously toward the floor. It was a fair drop. "Uh. Put me down?"

Castiel was careful not to show his amusement, merely nodding seriously. "Very well." He carefully picked Dean up off the counter and set him on the floor. "Please lead the way to the cafeteria, as I'm sure you've already discovered its location."

"Of course, dude. Gotta know where the food is." Dean marched out the door, pumping his little arms as if this was the most important walk in the history of humanity. Castiel followed, effortlessly keeping pace. Only under these strange circumstances, it seemed, would he ever be able to keep up with Dean Winchester.

The cafeteria did not actually serve chocolate chip pancakes, but this was not much of a hindrance for Dean. He just leaned against the metal counter, made his eyes large and round, and asked the cook to "put some choc-lit chips in, please?" Castiel wasn't sure, but he thought that maybe Dean had deliberately lisped a couple of the words. When the man looked to him for permission, Castiel shrugged gently and did his best to look like a fond parent. It wasn't particularly hard.

Dean did indeed order almost everything he had mentioned in Sam's room. Castiel had to carry the tray for him, Dean keeping a sharp eye on him to make sure he didn't drop anything. At the table, the child ate steadily through the pancakes, bacon and sausage, picked at the fruit and eggs, then began to slow down. When he actually began to play with the food, pushing it around the plate with his fork, Castiel frowned and leaned forward.

"Is something wrong?"

Dean's little shoulders slumped, and he let the fork fall haphazardly by his plate, scattering tiny scraps of scrambled egg across the table. "I want to go back to Sammy."

"There's nothing you can do for him. We have to trust Ruby and the doctors to figure it out and take care of him."

He looked up at him, green eyes liquid. "Dude, that just makes it  _worse._ "

Yes, he supposed it would. Dean's sense of responsibility was enormous, especially when it came to Sam. And even, apparently, when Dean was only a child himself.

"You suck at this comforting-adult thing." Dean pushed his plate away and put his head down on the table. His voice was muffled by the faux-wood, small and young. "I want my brother."

"I'm sorry." Castiel hesitated, then reached out and brushed his fingers through the boy's messy hair. "We'll go see him again, all right? Just to make sure. Then we'd better get you some clothes."

Dean sniffled for a bit longer, then raised his head, eyes suddenly twinkling. "Yeah, and how are we going to do that? You gonna take me flying? Or do you know how to drive?"

"I suppose it will have to be the second option. Though it's true that I don't know how to drive-you'll have to teach me."

"Oh, no way, man! No way am I letting you use my baby for your angelic driver's ed! I do not trust you that much!"

Castiel tilted his head. "Would you rather we go on the bus?"

Dean scowled ferociously at the table. His poked his finger into the whipped cream on the top of his fruit cup and smeared it across the light brown surface, drawing a stick figure with Xes for eyes. A pink tip of tongue stuck out the corner of his mouth as he worked, adding several details Castiel did not understand the significance of, and then he finally nodded, his shoulders slumping. "Okay, okay. I'll show you how to drive the Impala. But only because my feet probably don't reach the pedals anymore, and I'm pretty sure I'd get pulled over, anyway. The picture on my driver's licenses looks a little different than this."

Castiel nodded. Dean opened a napkin and laid it carefully over the whipped cream drawing, hiding it from view, then slid out of his seat and marched to the door. "C'mon, let's go see Sam."

In Sam's room, Ruby knelt on the floor on the side of the bed hidden from door, drawing something on the tile with pink chalk. Castiel recognized witchcraft, some kind of ritual. Crude, but perhaps it would be effective. She looked up and scowled at their entrance, dark eyes focused on Castiel. "What did I say about the kid and my hair?"

Castiel blinked. "Keep him out of it?"

"Got it in one. So what's going wrong with that plan?"

"Geez, hoity toity much? This isn't about you, Sulfur Girl." Dean rolled his eyes, making a beeline for Sam's bed. He grabbed the railing with both hands and started to scramble up, but his bare feet were slipping. Castiel hurried over and grabbed him before he fell, then lifted him onto the mattress.

Dean wiggled around to perch next to Sam's head, sitting cross-legged and staring into his brother's slack, pale face. "Hey, Sammy." He patted the young man's cheek. "You gotta wake up soon, okay? It's freaking boring around here with only Miss Highway to Hell and Mister Stairway to Heaven to entertain me. It's all just a lot of blah blah blah." He held his hands up next to his face, opening and closing his fingers and thumb as if manipulating puppets. "Predictable, man. I'm even starting to miss your annoying lectures, and that's just wrong."

He continued in that vein for several minutes. Castiel circled the bed to look down at Ruby's work, watching every move. "I do not understand the problem. He isn't in your hair. If anything, he may be in Sam's."

She pressed the chalk a little too hard against the floor, and it snapped in half.

"Oh." Castiel took a step back. "I'm being too literal again, aren't I?"

She just looked at him.

He backed slowly around the bed and waited for Dean.

After an excruciating length of time, Dean ran out of things to say. He stared at Sam's face silently for a few seconds, then sighed heavily and leaned down to kiss his brother's forehead. "Get better, Sammy."

He held out his arms for Castiel to pick him up and let himself be carried out to the Impala.


	3. Chapter 3

The Impala had been parked crookedly across two spaces, one wheel up on the concrete barricade, attesting to how hastily Dean had parked it here in his rush to get to Sam. It made the initial driving lesson—How to Back Out of Park—extremely difficult.

"Slower, slower!" Dean bounced up and down in the passenger seat, his young, high voice even higher with anxiety. If this kept up any longer it was going to become an inaudible squeak. "Just  _tap_  the pedal, you lead foot! God! I can't believe how bad you are at this!"

Castiel frowned, clenching his hands around the steering wheel. His shoulders and upper back were rigid with tension, and he was starting to get a headache. He hadn't realized that was even possible.

"Is your foot on the brake? Keep your foot on the brake! Don't just rest it there—you gotta push it down, you dumbass angel! I swear, if you leave a scratch on the paint, I'm going back to atheism. Swear to God! Well, swear to something, anyway."

Castiel took a deep breath. He did not sigh. The Impala rumbled around him, sounding distinctly unfriendly, hostile to the outsider daring to sit in her driver's seat, caress her controls. And now he was even starting to think like Dean.

This was going a bit too far.

He turned his head to give the child a narrow-eyed look. "Your constant yelling is not making this task any easier, I hope you realize."

Dean was on his knees on the seat, now, leaning with both hands on the dash, peering over the hood as if afraid that they were going to run into something. Even though they weren't moving. He flashed a sudden, white-toothed grin, looking at Castiel out of the corner of one eye. "Are you bitching me out?" He sounded unreasonably delighted by the prospect. "You are! You're bitching me out! Castiel, bitchass angel of the freakin' Lord! Yes. Awesome!" He pumped his fist in what appeared to be a gesture of victory.

Castiel eyes narrowed even further, his frown deepening. He would not sigh. He would not.

Dean giggled, clear and beautiful. "Damn, you and Sam should get together and have a bitchface contest. My little bro would win for sure, but wow, you could really give him a run for his money."

The child looked to the hospital, then, face blanking, eyes deadening. Thinking about his brother, pale and still in a railed bed, guarded by a demon.

Castiel let his foot slip from the brake and nudged the accelerator, making the car jerk forward a few inches, then slammed on the brake again. Dean kept himself from falling into the footwell only by virtue of already having his hands braced on the dashboard. He pushed himself back and landed with his butt on the seat, mouth open, working soundlessly for a moment.

The swearing was long and inventive and undeniably strange, coming from that cherubic little mouth. But the deadness in his eyes was gone.

"Son of a bitch, Cas! This should not be that hard!"

Castiel squinted at him.

"I learned to drive when I was ten, dude. Ten. How old are you? Millennia? Eons? Oh my  _God!"_

"Now I believe that you are the one who is 'bitching,' Dean."

The boy went silent. He looked forward and wrapped his arms around his chest, legs dangling over the edge of the seat. He was pouting. Castiel could not deny the wave of smug satisfaction that pulsed through him. Got him that time.

 _Definitely_  beginning to think too much like Dean. He really shouldn't be spending so much time around this infuriating, fascinating human. But who else was going to look after him? The child or the adult.

Dean scrubbed a hand over his face and pulled in a deep, shaky breath, his chest expanding in the too-big t-shirt, then relaxing again. "Okay. Okay. This...this is fucking weird, man. I'm getting way worked up over stupid shit. It's the kid brain messing with me, it must be. I don't see things the same way as I did before stupid Ruby did her stupid magic on my stupid self. My head doesn't work the same. Neither does my body, of course, but that's more obvious."

He took another deep breath, then finally looked over at Castiel, his eyes tragic. "I don't remember being this hair-trigger when I was little, but then, who remembers being six years old? That's a long fucking time ago, man. It was fun at first, being a munchkin, cussing at Ruby in this sweet little voice and making goo-goo eyes at the nurses, but I don't like it anymore. I want to be myself again."

Castiel carefully shifted into park and turned back the keys, cutting the engine so that silence filled the car. They both needed to step back, regroup. It was all just too much. Too much.

Dean wiggled around so that he sat sideways in the bench seat, leaning his head against the back rest, knees drawn up. "Why are you sticking around? Don't you have important things to do, seals to protect, people to save? Taking some annoying brat to go get some clothes has to be pretty far down on the heavenly priority list."

Castiel said nothing for a long moment. He could hear his brothers and comrades talking, discussing the war, sending urgent messages, calling for assistance on battlefronts across the globe. The tide of war moved constantly back and forth, and every soldier on the field—every angel, every demon, every hunter, every victim—was potentially the fulcrum on which all would turn. He shouldn't be away for long, and he was sure that Uriel would thoroughly "bitch him out" when he returned.

But he knew what he had to say, what was true and immediate in this moment, this now. "You are important, too."

"No offense, but that's sort of ridiculous, man. I'm just a guy. A little kid, right now. I don't get it."

"We still have work for you to do." How many times would have to say this? How long would it take for this man to understand?

Dean blinked at him. "Yeah, okay. Whatever you say, Mr. Sunshine-Puppies."

But he seemed to come out of his funk, then, turning forward and lowering his knees, back straight and eyes focused again. "All right, let's try this one more time. And remember, you gotta ease down on the accelerator.  _Ease._  Act like there's an egg under the pedal and you don't wanna break it."

Castiel tilted his head. That might help. Castiel was no good with these infernal human contraptions, but he knew how to be gentle with something small and breakable. "All right. Let's try it."

It actually worked.

X

"It was a fire," Dean told the sales lady. "Lost everything in a fire. Last night. It was bad." He coughed into his tiny fist, small and decorous. "My brother's still in the hospital with smoke in...in-hell...in-something. He hasn't woken up yet."

His eyes watered. Being an emotional young child apparently had its advantages.

The middle-aged woman's face went soft and open, a swift and complete transformation from the hard-eyed glare she had given them when she first spotted the little boy's bare feet and disheveled appearance. "Oh, don't worry, honey. We'll fix you up with everything you need. You and your...?" She looked at Castiel.

"Uncle Cas," Dean chirped.

"You and your...Uncle Cas." She gave her head a quick little shake, still staring.

"It's short for Cassandra," Dean said with a wicked little grin only Castiel saw.

"Short for Lucas," Castiel interjected smoothly. "When Dean was a toddler he seemed to prefer the second syllable, and we haven't managed to wean him off it yet." He gave her a brief, dazzling smile, drawing on fuzzy memories of human joy to make it as genuine as possible.

"Ah." She blinked, long and slow. "Well...Lucas. Don't you worry about a thing. Kohl's has everything your nephew will need."

She hurried off, presumably to begin gathering the necessary items, and Dean looked up at him. "Dude! That was awesome. I didn't know angels could lie."

"It wasn't a lie," Castiel said primly. "Merely a...story."

"Sorry to break it to ya, but they're pretty much the same thing."

Castiel's forehead wrinkled. It honestly had not occurred to him to explain the truth. Dean had been weaving a tale for the woman's benefit, and he had gone along without even thinking about it. This might be a problem. "Telling her the full story was clearly not an option."

"Well, clearly." Dean shrugged and looked away, already bored with the conversation. He poked at the colorful shirts on a nearby rack, and began tugging them aside one by one, too short to reach the hangers. His eyes were distant and uninterested. "When can we go see Sam?"

"Not for awhile yet." He cast about for a distraction. Dean's childish mind was much like a pendulum, it seemed, constantly returning to the same point. Castiel would have to push his thoughts in a different direction. "Why is it always a fire? You used the same story when I was an ill-clad child, as well."

"Hey, 'it was a fire' always works. Explains your lack of stuff and gets sympathy points on top of it. I should use it more often. Like, even when nobody has been turned into a kid." Dean circled around to a different rack, this one festooned with small t-shirts bearing various graphic prints. "Ooh, Batman!"

He jumped up, trying to grab the hanger of a black shirt with some sort of yellow symbol, and couldn't quite manage it, thumping back down to the floor with a frustrated grunt. Castiel began to reach out to fetch it for him, hopefully forestalling him jumping up and down like a rabbit on a pogo stick, but Dean solved the problem by simply grabbing the fabric in his reach and giving a good hard pull. The shirt popped off the hanger and dropped into the boy's hands.

Dean cackled gleefully. Several nearby shoppers gave him suspicious glances.

This was going to be a long day.


	4. Chapter 4

Castiel was running out of ways to distract Dean.

The shopping had not taken nearly long enough. Dean had bounced from rack to stack to disorganized pile of clothes, but once he had picked out shoes, socks, jeans and a few shirts, he was done. Adamantly so.

"Are you sure you don't need more clothes?" the sales lady asked, brows drawn together in concern when Dean hefted his chosen items into his arms and hugged them to his chest, new shoes already on his feet. "If it was really a bad fire, like you said, your entire wardrobe was probably ruined by smoke or water from the firehouses."

"I'm good, lady," Dean said, nodding firmly.

She turned beseeching eyes to Castiel, and Dean huffed, frustrated with having his opinion discarded simply because he was less than four feet tall now. "Uncle Lucas? What do you think?"

Castiel knew he was standing stock-still, frozen, unsure what to say, his eyes a little too wide for normal. He just couldn't answer that question. Did she mean what he thought about everything in universe? Which part of it? Castiel had many thoughts, all the time, some of which he knew were not quite acceptable for an angel of the Lord. They didn't have time for all of them, even if he wanted to share with a random human woman in a department store. Which he didn't.

Dean tugged on his sleeve, and Castiel turned to him with a rush of relief, inclining his head to listen to his little charge. Dean waved his hand downward, and Castiel bent toward him instinctively. The child seized his collar in one chubby fist and stood on his tip-toes to whisper in the angel's ear.

"I'm not staying a kid long enough to need any more clothes. I'm not. So you gotta tell her somethin' convincing, okay? She's obviously not gonna listen to me."

"What should I say?"

"I dunno. You come up with something. You're getting just as good at lying as I am."

"That is untrue, Dean."

But the child had already leaned away, staring up at him with big, disappointed eyes. "But, Uncle Cas!" he declared loudly, voice full of hurt and outrage. "You  _promised!"_

The sales lady's eyes went wide, staring at Castiel. "What did you promise, Lucas?"

Castiel felt his jaw clench. It...hurt, a little. "I promised that we would get ice cream."

"Oh. Well, there's plenty of time for that, isn't there?" She gave Dean a cautious, conciliatory smile. "You can do that anytime."

"You said before  _lunch."_  Dean's voice rose to a bratty whine. "You said, 'All things considered, Dean, I s'pose it would be ack, ack-sepibble if we got ice cream first and then ate lunch after. But only this once, as a  _special treat.'"_  The child laid heavy emphasis on the last two words, reminiscent of his adult self in full obstinate, sarcastic rebel mode. "It's almost noon! If we don't go soon, we can't get ice cream first, because we  _hafta_  eat lunch!"

"Oh, that makes sense," the woman said brightly.

Castiel eyed her doubtfully. "It...does?"

She shrugged minutely. "In kid logic, yes."

 _Kid logic._  Castiel was learning far more about the human child than he had ever anticipated. Unfortunately, being in the body of little human boy himself had not remotely prepared him for this small, loud version of Dean Winchester. Really, it was almost embarrassing, a mighty warrior of God being so completely unable to handle a six-year-old. He would have to do better.

"Ah. Yes. Ice cream." He inclined his head to small Dean. "Your point is well-taken. We will go immediately."

Dean bobbed a satisfied nod, and held out one hand expectantly. "Soon as we pay for the clothes, a' course."

"Of course."

Castiel gave him Ruby's platinum credit card and let him handle the transaction, watching carefully for next time. Fortunately, the clerk seemed to think that it was adorable, not odd, that "Uncle Lucas" was letting his nephew pay for their purchases.

Dean's new shoes squeaked as they walked out the door. The boy liked that, grinning and giggling all the way to the car, pausing every few steps to push his toes against the concrete and wiggle his feet around, causing more noises. He announced his determination to figure out how to play "Let There Be Rock" in squeaks.

Castiel clenched his jaw again.

X

They did not actually go for ice cream. Five minutes away from the department store, Dean started to fidget in his seat, and Castiel knew that he would soon be demanding to return to Sammy. He would have to find another tactic of distraction.

Castiel quickly spotted an opportunity and pulled the Impala to an abrupt halt at the side of the road. He was still getting used to braking. Dean bounced forward, of course, since he had refused to sit in the back and wear a seatbelt, and he tumbled bodily into the foot well, cursing at the top of his lungs. Castiel tilted his head and looked at him through non-physical sight for a moment to be sure he wasn't injured, but the boy was merely annoyed. Greatly annoyed. After a moment he righted himself, hair standing up from his head, face flushed, small hands clenched into fists, still cursing Castiel in three different languages. Castiel had never heard Latin so defiled before.

"What the fucking fuck, you fucker?" he finished explosively, pounding his fists on the seat and glaring up at the angel with a gaze of molten green-brown. Which made absolutely no sense, because nothing that Castiel could think of could be both molten and green-brown at the same time. Except for, apparently, Dean Winchester's eyes after he had been bounced into the foot well of his own car.

"It's a playground," Castiel said. "I thought you might want to play for a time. Perhaps try out your new shoes in a more active setting."

"A playground?" Dean popped out of the tiny alcove like a spring-loaded toy and knelt on the seat, staring out the windshield, eyes wide and delighted. "Oh, man, they have swings!"

"Swings are awesome," Castiel said solemnly.

Dean grinned at him, wide and bright. "That's just what I was gonna say!"

He was out the door in a flash of blue jeans and squeaky new shoes, already running across the grass before Castiel had time to push down the locks and climb out of the car. Castiel followed more sedately. He intended only to watch, to be sure that the boy didn't hurt himself. It was an unseasonably warm day, fortunately, and Dean's small jacket (which looked achingly familiar, now that he thought about it) ought to be enough protection from the chilly air. Really, this ought to be an easy task. He could stand on the sidelines, a watcher and not a participant, as he was meant to be in the affairs of humans.

But Dean pulled him in quickly, by the simple expedient of ducking his head a little, looking up at Castiel with big eyes, and asking nicely. Really, Castiel had only one answer to "Please play with me, Cas?" uttered in that sweet young voice. So he joined Dean at the swings, pushing the little boy higher and higher until he laughed himself out of breath, then swinging beside him. He no longer felt the echoing and rebounding of human joy, reaching between them and binding them together, but Dean's pleasure was enough for him, truly.

Then Dean insisted on riding the teeter-totter, which they had not gotten to before. This was a bit more difficult to manage, with the size difference between them, but Dean was able to instruct Castiel (loudly and with a liberal peppering of profanity) how to stand on the other side and control the movement with his hand. It was a good thing that Castiel wasn't human this time, because he would have gotten very, very tired long before Dean was bored with that particular activity.

Next was the slide. Dean insisted that Castiel catch him every time he slid down, despite the deep pile of soft litter at the bottom of the slide which should surely prevent any harm. Still, Castiel did as his little charge asked.

Next, Dean made himself dizzy on the merry-go-round. Castiel had to push. Again.

Then Dean threw up what was left of his pancakes into a group of leafless bushes next to the dumpster.

Then he cried. Even though, as Castiel pointed out repeatedly, he had completely missed his new shoes.

This was not the huge, messy sobs of angry temper, but a soft, slow slide of tears, one after another, weary and aching and in it for the long haul. Castiel remembered the difference between those tears, one of his clearer memories from that time. He scooped the little boy up his arms and carried him over to a bench, then sat, cradling the child in his arms and folding a corner of the trench coat around him. Dean wept into his shoulder, gradually soaking his shirt with tears, snot, and saliva. Castiel patted and hugged and stroked and murmured and did everything in his power not to be disgusted by the profusion of bodily fluids, because that would be too much like Uriel.

After a long time, Dean quieted. He sniffed against Castiel's shoulder for a bit longer, his arms curled up between their two bodies, sheltered and warm, knees still straddling Castiel's waist. He shifted his head out of the wet spot and into a dry patch in the center of Castiel's chest, where he rested, damp face pressing into his breastbone, head a soft warm weight against the angel's vessel, heavy, anchoring, a vulnerable trap which afforded no escape. Castiel rubbed his slender, narrow back, slipping his fingers inside the collar of the fleece jacket to pet over his shoulder blades, still shuddering inside the new Batman tee.

Dean blew out a slow breath, then snuffed in through his nose, hard, sucking back the excess effluvium. His voice was thick and rough, small and cracked. "Cas?"

"Yes, Dean. I'm here."

The boy shifted slightly against him, then settled back down with a muffled sigh. "Where's Sammy?"

Castiel paused, his hand stilling on Dean's back. Not  _when can we go back,_  but  _where._

"You don't know?"

This sigh was considerably more exasperated. "Well, I wouldn't've asked if I did, would I? Dipstick." He turned his hands over to grip Castiel's shirt, tugging it as much as he could with his arms still trapped between them. "C'mon, where did we leave 'im? He's too little to be by himself. Is Dad there? I thought he was huntin'."

"Dean..."

Castiel moved his hands to grip the boy's shoulders, gently but firmly, and carefully drew him away from his chest so he could look into Dean's face. The child muttered a protest at being forcibly removed from his warm little nest, but looked up to meet Castiel's gaze. His small face was red and puffy, still streaked with tears and misery, but he seemed lucid enough.

"Dean, do you know who I am?"

Again the tiny sigh. Dean lifted one hand to shove at Castiel's breast. "'Course I do, silly. You're my Cas. You look out for me. Now where's Sammy? I'm s'posed to look out for  _him._  'Smy job."

Castiel tilted his head to the side, as if looking at the boy from a different angle would somehow explain this. Of course, it didn't help. "Dean, how old are you?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Geez, have you forgotten  _everything?_  I'm  _six!_  Now can we go see Sammy?"

Castiel blinked, then pulled the boy in to rest against his chest again, purely as a delaying tactic. Dean went, letting himself be cuddled, completely relaxed and at ease. Castiel knew that in a few minutes, though, he would be asking for his little brother again.

And Castiel had no idea what he ought to say.


	5. Chapter 5

Dean was asleep. His limp form was heavy in Castiel's arms, weighty and solid in a way the angel had never felt before. It was the weight of complete and utter trust. Asleep and small like this, Dean was utterly helpless, utterly dependent on Castiel to keep him safe and sheltered and free from harm. The boy had entered into this state willingly, yawning and blinking sleepily for a few seconds, then snuggling his head down into the folds of Castiel's coat and closing his eyes, just like that, no hesitation, not even the slightest murmur of unease. He just gave himself over to Castiel's care in a way that adult Dean had never done, and Castiel was sharply, wrenchingly aware of exactly how precious this gift was.

It was a responsibility to make even an angel shiver with uncertainty.

It had been hard enough to keep an eye on Dean Winchester when he was a stubborn, strong, infuriating man, fresh from the unbearable torture of the Pit and still somehow unbroken, hard and unbending, snarling his doubt and his lack of faith straight into the face of the warrior of God who had raised him from perdition. That really took some...how did the humans say it? That took some brass monkey balls, something like that, though trying to imagine what those looked like and why Dean would have some made Castiel's head ache. Again. Humans and their metaphors were so incomprehensibly opaque sometimes.

Over the following months he had watched Dean slowly collapse into himself as all he had seen and suffered and done rose around him, deafened him, buried him, and slowly began to tear him apart. It was like watching a vivisection being done one slow, excruciating cut at time, cruel and inexorable and  _wrongwrongwrong._  When a tree refused to bend to the wind, eventually it snapped. Castiel was afraid that Dean—bold, brave, unbending Dean—would suffer the same fate.

Watching all of this, knowing the task that waited for Dean, what would eventually be asked and demanded of him... It had made Castiel question everything. Everything.

This man...still a boy in so many, many ways, despite everything he had been through (and literally a boy as well, for this moment)...this man had suffered enough. Castiel had watched on the sidelines, chained by his orders, by his very nature, for far too long already. And now, sitting on this park bench with this soft, warm weight filling his arms, resting against his chest, he was forced to acknowledge the not-quite-angelic urge that had begun to rise in him.

He didn't want Dean to suffer anymore. He would do anything, anything in his power and that was not forbidden, to prevent it. And, increasingly, he felt the surging fire of holy wrath aimed at anyone and anything that dared to harm this human in his charge, like points of painful light piercing him head to toe, wingtip to wingtip. The terrible things that kept happening to Dean, over and over, again and again...it simply was not just. It was not right. And Castiel would not bear it idly any longer.

About the same time that Castiel started to wonder what exactly he was going to  _do_  about this new determination, he became aware of a hard little lump digging into his side, pressed between his body and Dean's. It wasn't one of Dean's knees or elbows or other knobby corners, which he had already had to deal with—the shape was rectangular and regular, too symmetrical to be organic. With a slight wince, Castiel carefully shifted Dean aside just enough to worm a hand in between them and dig the object out of the boy's jacket pocket.

It was Dean's cell phone. Castiel eyed it doubtfully. Then he realized.

He could use this to call Ruby and demand some answers.

The first problem was that he would have to unwrap both arms from around Dean in order to use the small device. He didn't want to let go. But he forced himself to do so, eventually, then opened the phone with a judicious use of strength, well aware that he could accidentally destroy it if he let loose even the slightest touch of power. He worked out which way was right-side up, then stared in consternation at all the little buttons. Where was the directory? He knew there was supposed to be a directory of some sort, somewhere inside these little things.

Fortunately, punching a few buttons at random seemed to accomplish something. The name "Sam" briefly flashed on the screen, and a ringing buzz started to emanate from the speaker. Castiel warily lifted the device to his right ear, holding it a couple of inches away, just in case.

For a few moments, he was afraid that nothing would happen. Sam was probably still comatose, and Castiel had no idea where his phone was. Just when he was thinking about trying to find the button to turn it off, though, Ruby's voice blasted out of the speaker, loud and harried. "What?"

"Ruby."

Castiel's voice went low with danger. His Grace roiled within him, longing to snap out and wreak divine vengeance, but he held it in check. Still, he was aware of the cell phone's screen flickering slightly in the corner of his vision.

"Cas?" Ruby's voice lowered cautiously, instantly nervous. As well it should. Castiel was not in the mood to be as forgiving and loving as his Father, not right now.

"Don't call me that." Castiel didn't understand why Dean seemed to prefer that strange nickname. Still, he was sure that he would not find it pleasant coming out of any other mouth, and coming out of this one it sounded almost like blasphemy.

"Whatever. Just tell me what's going on."

"Something has happened to Dean. The spell you performed on him seems to be progressing."

Ruby was silent, digesting this. At least she seemed fully cognizant of just how serious this was. When she spoke, her voice was subdued. "What are you talking about?"

"He has lost all of his memories, fully regressing to the age his body seems to be. He appears to still know me, but I am uncertain if he is aware of my true nature and why I am here. He believes that his father is still alive and Samuel is a baby."

"Wow. Um..." She cleared her throat. "That's pretty bad."

"I am aware. If you have struck him with yet more magic..."

"I didn't!" There was true panic in the demon's voice, and Castiel felt a surge of righteous satisfaction. Good. She  _should_  be scared. "I swear, I didn't. Not consciously, that's for sure. All I'm thinking about right now is Sam and how to fix him. I'll swear it on heaven or earth or anything you want."

A low growl rumbled through Castiel's chest, vibrating the small head that rested there. "Swear not at all, neither by heaven, which is God's throne, nor by the earth, for it is His footstool. But let your yea be yea and your nay, nay."

Silence for a moment. "Uh. That's from the Bible, isn't it?"

"The fifth chapter of Matthew, yes."

"All right." He could practically hear her suppressing a sigh, the same as he had been doing all day long. "Nay, I did not do any magic on Dean. Any  _more_  magic, I mean. Are you satisfied?"

"Not exactly. But I appreciate the effort."

"Yeah, okay. Are we done here? I need to get back to it."

Castiel paused, then nodded slightly, forgetting that she couldn't see him. "Very well. Please do everything you can for Sam. Is his condition unchanged?"

"He's still lying there like a particularly useless sack of empty meat, if that's what you mean."

The angel's lip curled slightly at this distasteful image, but he kept his voice calm. "Please keep me informed."

He shut the phone on the sound of her still talking, voice sharp and sarcastic, and slipped it into his own pocket. These small devices could prove to be very useful. Humans and their immense ingenuity...such a marvel they were at times. When they weren't being stubborn and infuriating, of course.

Castiel sat on the park bench, cradling the human child in his arms and trying to soak in the peace that this interlude offered. If he were truly human he might feel the chill of the air or the loneliness of this small park, only the sound of cars passing on the road to accompany him. But he was an angel, and the world here was full of light and beauty.

Eventually the little boy stirred sluggishly, rubbing his face against Castiel's breast as he surfaced from sleep. Dean went suddenly still, face hidden, voice muffled. "Dude. What the hell."

Castiel looked sharply down at him, though all he could see was the top of the child's golden head. "Dean?"

Despite his evident surprise, Dean did not draw away, still resting limp and relaxed against the larger body. He turned his head to the side and smacked his lips. "Holy shit. What happened? Tastes like something threw up in my mouth and then  _died_  there. Gross."

"You did throw up. Then you cried, and fell asleep."

Dean raised his head, then, peering up at Castiel with bleary eyes, small form still circled by the angel's arms. "I did?"

"Yes." Castiel squinted down at him. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"Um...we were playing on the teeter-totter." Dean snickered and put his head back down on Castiel's chest. "You were awful at it, man. Totally clueless."

Without thinking about it, Castiel rubbed the boy's back, helping him wake up a bit more. "Dean...this may seem like an odd question, but how old are you?"

"I'm thirty, dude. I know I don't look like it, but in this I speak truth." Dean shook his head from side to side, then pushed away, pulling out of Castiel's grip. "Ungh, I hate this roadkill taste. Is there a water fountain somewhere around here?"

He scrambled to his feet, then swayed dangerously, still half-encased in sleep and weariness. Castiel gripped his narrow shoulder in one hand to steady him, and Dean seemed to lean into the touch, accepting his help. "C'mon, Cas. Water fountain? This feels freakin' nasty."

"Over here." Castiel led the way, his hand still on the shoulder that barely reached the level of his waist. Once they reached the concrete pylon with its central bowl and metal tap, he lifted the boy up to give him full access to the water. Dean drank and spit, gargled and splashed, and generally seemed to be enjoying the frigid water far more than most thirty-year-old men would. Castiel felt a flutter of worry in his chest, but when Dean was finally done and asked to be lowered to the ground again, his speech was as foul as ever.

"Okay, that's better, less shit more sour," Dean said cheerfully, heading back toward the Impala, "but it's totally time for ice cream now, for real."

Castiel trotted to keep up, an indefinable sense of wariness pressing in on the edges of his awareness. This was not even remotely good, and he wasn't at all sure how he should deal with it.

He was so completely focused on Dean that he almost didn't see the demon until it was too late.


	6. Chapter 6

It was just an ordinary man, hanging around the Impala as if he had a right to be there. Castiel paid no attention at first, thinking he was merely another visitor to the playground. And so he let them get far too close to the man, blithely crossing the concrete as if they hadn't a care in the world. The blame for that fell on Castiel alone, and he would never forgive himself for the lapse.

Demons had a distinct smell, like rot, a corruption of their very essence. It was this that caught Castiel's attention, and he jerked his head up, nostrils flaring and eyes going wide. Possession, that perversion of an unwilling human body to serve a force of evil... It raised every hair on Castiel's body, his vessel responding to his own distress.

He caught up with Dean in three running strides, catching the boy's shoulder and pulling him sharply back, making him stumble. "Get behind me, Dean."

For once, the elder Winchester obeyed without question, only glancing up at Castiel with wide eyes before letting the angel push him back, hidden from the black eyes that watched them from a smiling face. Too close, only steps removed... Castiel kept his hand behind him, resting on the boy, as he carefully backed them away.

One demon was no match for an angel, even an angel currently preoccupied with looking out for a small human boy. It would be beyond stupid for one ordinary imp to approach Castiel alone, yet this creature stood by the Impala, smiling, watching, eyes beetle-black and full of glee. Something else had to be going on here. A trap? An ambush? Were more demons laying in wait, circling around, preparing to leap on them now that Castiel had walked them directly into the center of their company like a lamb led to slaughter?

In spite of himself, Castiel shuddered.

But the demon wasn't looking at him. It was staring at something to Castiel's side, and he looked down, trying to understand. Dean's small hand was clenched around Castiel's wrist, the only part of the boy now visible, and it was this that the demon smiled at.

"Hello, little Winchester," it purred, its voice a smooth rush of velvet over coals. "My, my, you really are just a small fish in a big, big pond, aren't you?"

Dean held absolutely still. It was possible that he wasn't even breathing.

"What do you want?" Castiel growled. "Give me a reason not to send you back to the Pit without delay."

Impossibly, the demon's smile broadened even further. "I want nothing from you, little angel. Just wanted to see if it was true. And sure enough, Dean Winchester, scourge of the Pit, heaven's bitch, John's soldier, Alastair's pupil, weak, tiny child ripe for the picking. Oh, it's just too delicious for words." It licked its smiling lips, slow and lascivious.

Dean trembled against Castiel's back.

"Wrong answer," Castiel spat. He gently twisted his wrist out of the boy's grip in one smooth motion and stalked forward, hand already reaching out, intent on sending this black stain on the good day back where it belonged.

The demon took several long steps back, as if it could possibly escape the wrath of an angel, still grinning full and wide and obscene. Just before Castiel wrapped his hand around its host's forehead, it threw back the head of the man it was wearing and vomited black smoke into the sky, a vile waterfall of filth spreading its stench far and wide. Castiel set his mouth in a grim line and lowered his hand, waiting until it was over.

The black bled away into the blue sky and the man lowered his head, panting and staring. "What...? Where...?"

"You are fine," Castiel said. "Return to your business."

"I was...I was downtown. And then...what happened?" The ordinary eyes were beseeching, frightened. This would be the time for a comforting lie, one of those stories that Dean so excelled at.

"You were possessed by a demon." Castiel had never been good at the verbal comforting thing.

"I...what?"

Castiel took a deep breath. He had a smidgen of compassion to spare for this poor man, but no more than that. "You are uninjured. Return to your business. And perhaps think about going to church more often."

"Uh... That sounds like a good idea." He blinked, dazed and unbelieving.

The angel made an impatient little gesture with his hand.  _Go on now._  He only barely prevented himself from saying that aloud.

Because...

"Cas."

The single word was a whimper, small and young and terrified, and Castiel turned back to the boy with a sharp turn on his heel, all thoughts of the recently possessed man banished from his head. Dean stood frozen on the pavement, gaze stark and staring, arms locked around his chest, face sickly gray. As Castiel rushed back to him, he began to sway on his feet. He tried to keep his senses sharp for any more demons, but it was hard, so hard, when everything in him demanded that he pay attention only to the boy in his care.

"Dean." He knelt down and folded his hands around the child's shoulders, holding him up. "Are you all right?"

Dean's eyes were fixed on a distant point, wide and blank.

_By all the saints..._

Castiel squeezed his shoulders, trying to decide if shaking him was a good idea or not. For the first time, the boy felt fragile in his hands, small and breakable. Until now his presence had been so solid, so expansive, filling the entirety of Castiel's vision and beyond. Pouring it into this smaller figure had only seemed to concentrate it, not diminish it. Until now.

 _"Dean._  Are you all right?"

Dean shivered and came back to himself, blinking rapidly. Castiel sagged slightly, his grip on the boy's shoulders loosening. Green eyes rose to meet his, watering now with reaction.

"Cas... What was that? Was...was it a demon? Daddy said demons are bad trouble. It knew my name..."

Castiel swallowed. He asked the question, already sure of the answer. "How old are you?"

"I'm six." This time the boy's voice was not irritated with Castiel's forgetfulness, and his hands were not animated, lively, pushing at the angel as if he could form the larger being to his will just by wanting it. His body was still, his eyes still holding to the angel's face in desperate search of refuge. "How did it know my name?"

Castiel shook his head helplessly, then drew the child to his chest once again. It seemed that physical comfort was the only thing he could ever give this small human, which was truly a shame. Castiel was so unskilled at this, and Dean deserved better. "Don't worry about it. I will take care of everything."

Dean nodded into his chest, believing. Slowly, hesitantly, he wrapped his arms around Castiel's neck. After a moment, he clung on tight, near desperate.

Castiel's heart lurched in his chest, a small movement, but almost painful in its intensity. He wondered if there was something wrong with his vessel. Maybe he was starting to wear it out with all of these shenanigans.

Dean sniffed, the tiny sound seeming very loud so close to Castiel's ear. "Where's Sammy?" It was not a demand, this time, just a quiet, tearful request. "I want to see Sammy."

"We'll go and see him now."

X

They stopped for ice cream first. Dean perked up when faced with the plethora of choices, asking the teenager behind the counter for sample after sample before settling on a hideous amalgamation of chocolate, pistachio, and three fruit flavors. He ate eagerly for a time, kneeling on the plastic bench across the table from Castiel and occasionally offering the angel bites of ice cream, insisting that he try it because it was  _awesome._  Too soon, though, he slowed down, setting his bottom on the bench, small pink mouth opening for the ice cream less widely, less happily, until he dropped the spoon in the half-empty bowl and pushed it away with a tiny sigh.

"Done now," he said, all big eyes and mournful expression.

"Are you sure?" Castiel asked. "You've been talking about getting ice cream for quite some time."

"Not the same without Sammy here." He looked down at the table, knocking his legs against the solid bottom of the bench.

As far as Castiel could tell, he did not return to his thirty-year-old memories. It was quite disconcerting. And he knew very well that a Dean who did not enjoy food—even a tiny Dean like this one—was not a normal, happy Dean.

He made one other stop on the way back to the hospital, but if possible Dean seemed even less interested in this one, merely glancing around with jaundiced eyes as Castiel strode up and down the aisles, searching. The boy didn't even offer to help him find what they were looking for. Eventually Castiel had to ask a salesperson to direct him to the slinkies.

Castiel kept his awareness open for any hint of more demons, but he didn't sense anything. However, he had proved that his lack of noticing didn't mean that nothing was there, hadn't he?

X

Outside the hospital room, Castiel paused, his hand flexing involuntarily around the small fingers he held. He turned to the boy and caught his gaze, holding it solemnly. "Are you still six?"

Dean tilted his head in confusion, forehead wrinkling. "Um, yes? My birthday's not for weeks and weeks and weeks."

"Right." Castiel knelt down to be on level with the boy, still holding his hand. "Listen, Dean. Something happened. Your Sammy isn't a baby anymore. He's a grown man now. It may seem strange, but he's still your brother. And he's hurt, but we're doing everything we can to help him get better."

"We?"

Castiel ground his teeth together for a second, then forced himself to relax. "The doctors and nurses, and also a lady named Ruby. She's with Sam now."

"Sammy's with a  _lady?"_  Dean's eyes were so wide that it looked painful. They narrowed abruptly, sharp and suspicious. "You're messin' with me. Are you messin' with me, Cas? That's not nice."

He shook his head. "I'm afraid not. Everything I tell you is the truth."

Dean shifted from foot to foot, looking to the door of his brother's room. "Okay, okay. Lemme see 'im."

Castiel took the boy into his arms and lifted him to rest against his hip again, and Dean let him do it. They entered the room just as Ruby was finishing a chant, the words low and stilted, her hand resting on Sam's forehead. The room smelled of pine and sage, and small, unobtrusive symbols marked every corner of the room, scribed in black marker and handmade ink.

Castiel stepped up to the bed, and Dean leaned over to peer into his brother's face, his hand holding tight to the shoulder of Castiel's coat. The child hardly seemed to breathe. Ruby finished her spell and stepped back with a ragged gasp, exhausted and panting, eyes ringed with dark circles, but they paid her no mind.

Sam's head shifted on the pillow, rolling back and forth, a low moan stuttering through his lips. Then he opened his eyes and stared blearily up at them, face drawn and haggard and still far, far too pale.

"Wow, Sammy." Dean's voice was hushed with awe. "You got big."

Sam blinked at him. "Wow, Dean. You got little."

Yes, that summed it up nicely.


	7. Chapter 7

Sam was having one weird-ass day.

The day had started out normal enough, in the wee hours, that was, practicing demon-fu with Ruby. And yeah, okay, so that was weird for most people, but it was becoming increasingly normal for him. Sam was getting better and better at pushing things around with his mind, bending the natural and supernatural world to his will. It was glorious and intoxicating and terrifying as hell, and it was what he had to do. So yeah, normal.

But then the weird stuff had started. There had been...pressure. A feeling of being crushed, his brain being squeezed in a giant hand like a fistful of grapes, until the juice escaped and consciousness fled. Sam remembered falling to the floor, Ruby's shocked face wavering somewhere above him, and then nothing.

It had hurt. A lot. His whole head still ached, feeling bruised and battered and wavering on its metaphorical feet. The current situation was not helping matters much. He was having a little difficulty processing.

His brother sat beside him on the bed, strange and small, leaning confidently against him and chattering away about his visit to the playground with "Uncle Cas." Before she left to find a doctor, Ruby had raised the head of Sam's bed so he could sit up. Dean had taken that as an invitation, clambering out of Castiel's arms and snuggling down next to Sam without the slightest hint of an invitation. He had taken the time to arrange it to his tastes, though, kicking the sheets around with his incomprehensibly tiny sneakers and nudging Sam's arm impatiently until he put it around the little boy, still blinking and confused but unable to resist that kind of demand.

This Dean was so trusting, so innocent. Somehow he had gotten it into his head that Castiel was his uncle and therefore implicitly believable, and therefore he believed it when Castiel said that this was Sam, the brother he only remembered as a baby. A spiky ball of terror had lodged in Sam's chest, hot and throbbing, because Dean should never be like this, so easy to convince and lead. It made him incredibly vulnerable, and he was already too small, too short and slight and childishly beautiful with his gold-brown hair and big eyes and rounded face and...everything.

This was not exactly new for Sam, though the sensation was horribly heightened now. Ever since Dean had come back, and especially since his confession on the side of a Kentucky road, Sam had known that Dean needed protecting, now. Hell had chipped something away from his big brother, something subtle but vital.

To most people—perhaps all—Dean probably seemed the same as always: cocky, crude, chauvinistic, a lower-class grunt in a too-old car. But Sam knew. Sam saw. His real major had always been Understanding Dean, never mind that brief fling with pre-law back when he was young and stupid and didn't understand how life worked for Winchesters. He understood the effect, if not the cause. It was his turn to step up.

And now that cocky, crude, chauvinistic, wonderful bristly rough shell of adult-Dean had been stripped away, leaving behind the shining center that had always survived at the heart of him. Sam had not needed to be convinced that this was Dean—he recognized him instantly. And on the heels of recognition had come fear that nearly strangled him, because Dean was  _small_  and there were demons out there, and Sam was in a hospital bed and he hurt and he didn't know what had happened or how to fix it.

"And then I threw up and cried and Uncle Cas hugged me and I fell asleep," Dean was saying, still reciting the events of the afternoon. "It's too bad you missed the slide, Sammy, but it's okay you weren't there for that part. Cas's hugs are almost as good as Daddy's, and I woulda hated to throw up on you or somethin'."

Helplessly incredulous, Sam looked to Castiel, sitting at the bedside in a high-backed vinyl armchair and watching them both with big, worried eyes that never seemed to blink. The angel frowned and nodded. Damn, poor kid had gotten sick and Sam hadn't been there. Hadn't even known...anything.

"And then we..." Dean faltered, staring sightlessly away. The silence stuck there, stretched out too long. The little boy had frozen, unblinking, and the fresh terror in Sam's chest found something new to latch onto.

"Dean." Sam tried to keep his voice calm, but knew that there was a current of hysteria under it. He wrapped his arm farther around the child and squeezed him tight to his side, feeling the warmth of the little body, the hard press of his elbow and shoulder, sharp and clear through the thin hospital gown.  _"Dean."_

The boy blinked and shuddered, sagging suddenly in Sam's grip, limp against his side. His voice was tiny, higher than just a moment ago, but almost emotionless. "There was a man with black eyes in the parking lot."

He buried his face against Sam's ribs, hiding, trembling, and Sam looked again to Castiel. The other man's face was harsh with guilt, drawn and begging. "It was my fault. I did not notice him. I should have."

Sam's voice was harsh, too, though unintentionally. His throat was just too tight to let the words out in anything more than a hoarse exhalation of air. "What happened?"

Castiel tipped his chin up, mouth grim, not defiantly but as if bracing for a blow. "I allowed myself to be distracted. It was a foolish error. We walked almost directly up to the demon before I realized what it was. I threatened to send it back to hell. It threatened Dean's safety, expressing pleasure that heaven's warrior had been turned into a small boy. It fled before I could exorcise it."

Sam blinked wearily, letting his head loll against the supporting pillow. "So nothing happened, then? But Dean. It threatened Dean." He looked down at the fluffy little head pressed under his arm, and had no oulet for the rage that filled him, almost subsuming the terror in cold red waves.

He was glad that Castiel hadn't gotten the demon in time. He wanted to take care of it himself. It was just too bad that he couldn't kill them.

"'Mokay, Sammy," Dean said, rolling his head around to press his crown against Sam's side. "I was just scared that somethin' might happen to you when I wasn't there."

 _God,_  this kid.

"Don't worry about me, Dean," Sam murmured, fighting to make his voice audible. "I can take care of myself."

Dean gave him a skeptical eyeball, but settled down, lounging against his big-little brother, elbow poking him sharply between two of his ribs. Sam squirmed a bit, trying to shift him, but Dean was relaxed and warm and completely immovable despite his small size.

Speaking of which...

Sam's brain finally caught up enough to realize that something was definitely hinky here. He looked to Castiel, eyes abruptly wide, his head giving a sharp throb with the movement. "Cas...what the hell happened to my brother?"

Castiel's shoulders slumped even further than they had been already. Sam had never imagined that he would get a chance to see a depressed angel, but, yeah. Sam was having one weird-ass day.

X

When Ruby finally returned, trailed by a bored-looking doctor and a slightly more alert nurse, Dean gave them all the stink-eye and pressed himself further back into his brother. Sam glanced down at him, surprised by this reaction in the apparently sweet, trusting little boy. But no, that had been just with Sam and Castiel, he remembered. Sam hadn't noticed his brother's reaction to Ruby before she left, still too busy waiting for his head to stop floating three feet away from his body. He had probably made faces at her, too.

Dean was wary of strangers, even at this young age. Yes, that made perfect sense.

He saw a mutual wariness in Ruby, too, keeping an eye on the boy but careful not to come too near, never adressing him directly. The doctor and nurse at first attempted to get the child to move off the bed so they could examine their patient, but thought better of it when Dean bared his teeth at them and  _growled._  It was disturbingly intimidating for something that sounded like it should have come out of a kitten.

Dean kept a close eye while they checked the bump on Sam's head, shone lights in his eyes, noted his vitals, and asked question after question after question. No, he didn't have a history of seizures or strokes. Yes, he knew the year and the name of the president and his birthday and he remembered what he'd been doing when he collapsed—just taking a walk in the moonlight with his girlfriend, thank you, nothing dangerous or unusual or interesting. His head ached but there were no sharp spikes, his vision wasn't blurred or doubled, he was dizzy and nauseated but it was no worse than a moderate flu.

They talked about CAT scans and MRIs and blood tests and other medical nonsense, and they obviously had no idea what they were looking at or what they were talking about. Dean's skeptical glare did not soften in the slightest, and Ruby and Castiel just watched with exasperation and confusion, respectively.

"Fuck, what a bunch of yahoos," Dean declared when they, at long last, took their leave.

Sam's head swam as he jerked around to look at him, too quick, too sharp. "Dean?"

"What's it to ya?" Dean shoved at Sam's arm still wrapped around him with both small hands, thrusting him off and squirming away to sit up against the railing, looking Sam in the face. "It's still me, dude. The packaging changes but the contents remain the same."

The other three just stared at him.

"Hey, Sammy, good to see those peepers." Dean punched his arm, voice light and sincerely happy. "How you feeling? And what happened to you, anyway? I wake up and see your bed empty, and then I get called by a freakin'  _hospital,_  man, saying they just admitted my brother, Thomas Anderson. You gotta quit giving me heart attacks, dude. I'm too old for this."

"Dean..." Sam shook his head, not sure where to start.

"Hey, when did you wake up, anyway? You been up for long?" Dean leaned forward, so close to Sam's face that the now-bigger brother had to cross his eyes to keep him in focus. "You don't look so hot. Maybe you should take a nap. You got all...circles around your eyes." He waggled a finger around Sam's eyes, brushing feather-light touches on his temples with those warm, tiny fingers.

Sam  _hurt._  His heart was literally aching. How did that work? Dean was still Dean, always, big or small, old or young, innocent or hardened. How did he manage it?  _The packaging changes but the contents remain the same._  In one way Dean was completely wrong on that one, considering his yo-yoing memories. But in another way, yeah, that was exactly the right way to say it.

"Dude, what is it?" Dean leaned back, frowning. "Oh, crap. You aren't going to cry, are you? Your eyes are all red and damp and stuff. Don't you dare cry on me, Sam. You might drown me, you freaking giant."

"God, Dean." Sam passed a trembling hand over his face, trying to pull himself together. Mood swings were a symptom of concussion, right? This was totally just the head injury messing with him. "What are we going to do?"

"We're going to fix this."

Castiel's voice was warm and certain. He had stood from his chair to lean against the railing, next to the brothers but not intruding on their intimate circle. "We are going to discover the cause of this madness, and we are going to fix it."

"Right." Ruby's voice cracked, choked and small, but she sounded sincere. They barely looked at her, the brothers too caught up in staring at each other, Castiel focused on them.

Then Ruby uttered a strangled, choking cry, and Sam turned his head just in time to see her crumble to the floor.


	8. Chapter 8

"Ruby? Ruby!" Sam struggled to sit up, craning his head to see where the demon girl had fallen. Dean grumbled at his side in a vaguely threatening manner. Castiel, though, was faster than any of them, somehow at Ruby's side in the blink of an eye and catching her head just before it hit the floor.

Ruby moaned and tossed her head in the angel's grip. Her limbs twitched uncontrollably, jumping up and down. The sight of it was somehow awful, obscene. It was impossible to know if she was reacting to Castiel's touch or to something else, but whatever it was, it looked painful.

"What is she doing?" Dean asked, staring down at her with eyes and mouth agape.

Sam's heart was beating too fast. All right, he wasn't entirely sure that he  _liked_  Ruby, certainly didn't trust her, but he needed her. "What does it look like?" he snapped. He fumbled for the call button, fingers thick and shaking. A seizure, she was having a seizure. Is this what happened to him right before he passed out and found himself here?

"No, it's a fair question." Castiel looked up at them, just as cool and serene as ever. "This is not a physical malady. She is fighting with something."

Ruby's head wrenched back and forth, and the angel tightened his fingers, holding her still, gazing down on her with all the compassion that a young boy would show for the ants he was watching through a magnifying glass. Sam stared, tried to see what he saw, a struggle, a fight, but all he saw was a suffering girl lying on the floor, writhing in the grip of something they could not see. Dean's small fingers bit into his side, clenching in his hospital gown and digging into the flesh beneath.

Sam fought the urge to cover his brother's eyes, protecting the child from such an unsettling sight. But this was Dean with his adult memories, though it was getting harder and harder to remember the difference.

In due time a flood of nurses and doctors poured into the room, taking Ruby from Castiel's hands. Nothing they did seemed to make any difference, but the three of them watched, all the same. Sam could hear the same confusion in their voices as when they were examining him—none of this made sense to them, nothing followed the right patterns. A familiar thing for the Winchesters, to know more than the so-called experts. Castiel was right. This wasn't a medical problem. It was supernatural.

Sam looked around the room, seeing the wards and symbols of protection Ruby had already put in place. Mostly general stuff, nothing specifically against demons, because of course that would hurt her, too. Was Ruby fighting another demon? Was it trying to possess this body, kick her out?

He bent his head to murmur into Dean's ear. "You have to get closer to her. See if you can do a quick exorcism."

Dean looked up at him, showing the white of one eye like a panicked horse. "I thought you liked Ruby. Thought you wanted her around."

"I do, but...she's fighting something. Another demon, maybe. Exorcise that one."

"Dude, just how bad is your head? You can't pick and choose. Exorcism is whole hog."

'Maybe you can weaken it, though. Even if you weaken both of them, maybe it'll stop looking like a seizure so the doctors will leave us alone. We have to try  _something."_

"This is definitely one of your weirder ideas, man." But he slid carefully off the bed, sliding his tiny frame between the rail and the mattress, and inched nearer to the clump of medical folks gathered on the floor.

Then he abruptly switched direction, going to Castiel, who stood hunched and watching by the bank of windows like some gothic statue. The boy tugged on a hanging sleeve, and Castiel turned to him instantly, crouching down to listen with frowning concentration as Dean cupped a hand next to his mouth and talked urgently into his ear. Then the angel nodded and straightened, one hand falling gently on Dean's shoulder as if without conscious thought, the other held at waist height, stretching toward Ruby.

They had loaded Ruby onto a gurney and were starting to wheel her toward the door. "Wait!" Dean cried, his high child's voice cutting through the medical chatter, and launched himself toward the still-shuddering girl. They parted to make way for him, more out of startlement than anything else.

Dean hauled himself up onto the gurney and put his mouth next to Ruby's ear, talking low and rapid. Sam couldn't hear the words from where he sat, but the cadence was clearly liturgical Latin. The small mouth faltered over some of the words, and Sam had no doubt that the pronunciation was being butchered to heck, but maybe it wouldn't matter. They didn't really want to get rid of Ruby—they wanted to help her.

About the time one of the nurses started hovering uncertainly at Dean's back, clearly wanting to haul him off, the kid leaned back and gave them all a brilliant, cupid's-bow grin. "Jus' wanted to tell Aunt Ruby how much I love her." He pushed himself off the gurney and trotted back to Castiel, turning back to watch the proceedings with wide, innocent eyes. He slipped his hand into Castiel's and held on tight, also seeming without conscious thought.

On the gurney, Ruby's body had stopped jolting, stopped fighting an invisible enemy. The intern holding her shoulders to keep her still jerked in surprise at the sudden lack of movement, but they wheeled her out the door anyway. Sam leaned forward despite the vertigo caused by the movement, trying to watch for as long as possible.

At last the room was still again, and they were alone. The raspy intake of Dean's shaky breath filled the air, loud and harsh. Castiel and Sam looked to him immediately, saw his white face and big eyes, the way he swayed on his feet.

"Damn it," Sam spat. The six-year-old was back, had to be, for Dean to look so frightened and shocked by something that was actually very tame in comparison to the things he usually faced on a daily basis. What was this? Why did this keep happening?

The boy paid him no mind, though, just turned to Castiel and lifted his arms in mute appeal. Castiel scooped him up easily and held him to his heart, then moved back over to the bed so Sam could place a shaking hand on his back. He felt the tremors going through the little body and was stupidly, helplessly furious at his total inability to handle this situation.

"Dean?" he asked carefully. "You in there, little buddy?"

Dean nodded against Castiel's chest, eyelids drooping. "Tired."

"Rest then. It's all right. Cas and I will stay here."

He glanced to Castiel for confirmation, and the angel nodded. He would stay.

Sam was childishly grateful. It was so good to have someone to share this with. He didn't even have the words.

X

Castiel sat in the big plastic chair next to the bed, his feet propped up on the railing. Dean curled against his chest, sleeping or dozing with his hands twisted in Castiel's shirt. It was not uncomfortable, though it really probably ought to be.

An orderly had brought Sam a tepid, bland meal, and he picked at it listlessly, letting his head lean back against the pillows. "I wish they'd tell us what's going on," he fretted aloud. "Ruby should be awake now, right? You protected her with your angel stuff while Dean was doing his lisping little-kid exorcism. Which I'm sure was adorable and I wish I'd been able to hear it, but whatever. Damn, these green beans are ice cold."

Sam was bitchy when he was concussed, Castiel noted absently. He did not remark on the phenomenon.

The young man tapped his fork irritably on his plastic plate. "This sucks. I hate being stuck here. I hate this hospital. This bed hurts my back. I don't even like stroganoff."

"It looks rather like intestines," Castiel said, nodding in agreement.

Dean giggled fuzzily into his tie, and Sam made a face and put his fork down. "Well, that certainly killed what little appetite I had. Thanks, man."

"You are welcome."

Dean mumbled sleepily and rubbed his face into Castiel's shirt, mussing it thoroughly, then settled down again, still and limp and warm. Sam looked at him, and a transformation passed over his face, wiping away the annoyance, the sharp discomfort, and replacing it with something much more beautiful. Castiel couldn't help but stare, infinitely fascinated. Sometimes he thought that he had never truly understood what love was until he had met the Winchester brothers, despite millenia and eons spent contemplating the all-encompassing love of the Almighty. Strange how something so small could feel so large.

"Is he all right?" Sam asked. "I didn't mean to bother him."

Castiel didn't even have to look to know the answer. He was constantly aware, now, of Dean and everything that was going on with him, down to the smallest breaths and minutest twitches. "He is well. It has been a long, tiring day."

"Yeah." Sam let his head sink back into the pillow and stared straight ahead, blinking slowly. "I don't understand...we gotta fix him, Cas."

"He is not broken." Castiel passed a hand over the boy's soft hair.

"You know what I mean. Bad enough that our life has suddenly become  _Honey I Shrunk the Kids,_  but...why does his mind keep switching back and forth? It...it really scares me. And every time, it seems, he spends more and more time as a little kid and less time as, as Dean. I want my brother back."

Castiel frowned. "He hasn't gone anywhere."

Sam clenched his fists and huffed out a breath. "You know what I mean!"

"I'm not sure that I do." Castiel tilted his head to the side to study the human at a different angle. "Perhaps you have not noticed, but Dean is happy when his mind reverts to childhood. He is still himself, but he is trusting and innocent, and he believes absolutely that you and I will care for him, that we will care for everything. It is...relaxing. In all the time I've known him, he has never been so peaceful and at ease in his mind. I do not think that this is a bad thing, for now. Eventually he will have to return and take up his responsibilities again, but the Apocalypse is not happening today. It is doing us no harm for Dean to be as he is."

Sam stared at him for a long moment, and Castiel stared back, trying to understand. Was what he had said so very shocking to the young man?

Sam finally blinked and shook his head, looking away. "Somehow, I kinda doubt that you've ever thought or said anything remotely like that before. Aren't you angels always all about the party line, the serious mission? And yet here you are, happy that Dean is getting a break. Uriel was right—you  _like_  him."

Castiel looked down, abruptly abashed, turning inward, though his eyes were fixed on the messy blond mop that rested on his chest. Was it true? Had he changed so much? Certainly the day had been an odd one for him as well, so many new experiences stacking on each other in such quick succession, but had it truly affected his angelic judgement, his dedication to Heaven's will?

Yet he could not see a wrong in this. He could not take back anything he had said. Dean deserved this interlude of peace, however brief, however strange. Whatever his brethren would think if presented with the conundrum, Castiel's answer was solid and sure.

Sam swallowed thickly and pushed back the tray of food, as if the smell sickened him. "You said...Dean is happy as a child?"

Castiel nodded.

"Maybe...maybe that's why the intervals are getting longer, why he's spending less time in his adult mind. Because he prefers it this way, somewhere deep down. Because things get overwhelming for him and he just wants to go back."

Castiel's arms tightened around the small body. "Perhaps that is so."

He thought he might be hearing censure in the younger Winchester's voice. It...troubled him.

"Well, I hope he enjoys his little mental vacation," Sam said, after a long moment of staring at the opposite wall. "It won't be a long one. We can't afford it."


	9. Chapter 9

Sam was supposed to be asleep. They all said so—the nurse, Castiel, even his own body. His eyes just kept popping open, though, feverish and aching.

Dean was awake and lively again, trying to be quiet while he bounced off the walls. Sometimes he played with a slinky he had procured somewhere, sometimes he hung off the arm of his patient angel, and sometimes he came over to the bed to stare at Sam with big worried eyes. As far as Sam could tell, though, the little-kid memories remained in control. The adult Dean,  _Sam's_  Dean, didn't come back.

What if he never came back? What if Ruby was really hurt, or exorcised; what if she couldn't reverse her accidental magic? What if Dean was never himself again, stuck forever in the mind and body of a little child, like some kind of brain damage? Or maybe it was more like...soul damage.

Sam's eyes popped open again.

He became so fuzzy with anxiety and exhaustion that the world gained a shiny, blurred edge, indistinct and uncomfortable. He was aware of Castiel's grim face, dark eyebrows lowered, unblinking eyes staring at him for an indeterminate length of time. The angel snagged Dean on one of his Billy-from-Family-Circus-like circuits of the room and crouched down to murmur warmly in his ear.

The next Sam knew, Dean was curled up next to him on the bed, on his side facing Sam with his fists drawn up to his narrow chest, stocking feet digging into Sam's thighs. As Sam blinked at him in sleepy confusion, Deaan wriggled his head closer on the pillow until his breath tickled Sam's nose, smelling of sour and sweet and ice cream. "It's okay, Sammy," Dean whispered, "I'll stay with you till you fall asleep."

Sam considered for a moment, distantly aware that his train of thought was not strung in anything like a logical order. Then he turned on his side, facing his brother, and curled up, pushing his legs up into the little boy's feet and bending his forehead until it touched Dean's. Peace covered them both like a thick, warm quilt, and Sam fell asleep like that.

Later there was the sensation of a strong hand shaking his shoulder, Castiel's voice urgent in his ear. "I must join my brothers in battle. You will be all right? You will look after Dean?"

Sam's eyelids strained to open, heavy and gummed together, and couldn't quite make it. "Mm hmm," he managed. He could feel Dean's small body tucked up against him, sheltered, his. "Jus' make sure the nurses don' kick him out."

"I will make him less noticeable." Sam forced one eye open long enough to see Castiel trace a sigil on Dean's forehead and murmur something over him in a language Sam didn't recognize. The lights from the monitors illuminating him in the blue darkness of the room made him look eerie, even more otherworldly than usual. When he finished, he looked back to Sam. "When other humans look at Dean, whatever he is doing will seem ordinary and natural, nothing to take note of. It is how my brethren are able to pass unnoticed in the world."

"Cool." Sam let his eye fall shut again, content. A short gust of wind ruffled airy fingers through his hair, and he knew Castiel was gone.

X

Dean woke when one of the nurses came in to check Sam's vitals. In the process of getting to Sam's arm, she was forced to jostle Dean, seeing as how Sam had somehow managed to entwine both orangutan arms all the way around Dean in his sleep, like the giant girl he was. Dean lay very still, waiting for the nurse to kick him out, but she didn't. She didn't acknowledge Dean at all, just shifted him impersonally to the side, otherwise completely focused on Sam.

Dean was both weirded out and relieved. He kept one wary eye on the nurse until she left, then finally shoved his way out of Sam's cuddle-monster grip and sat up on the bed. "Even in your sleep, Sammy," he muttered, carefully quiet enough that he wouldn't wake the kid. For a moment he wondered how he had ended up sleeping there—he couldn't remember going to bed, couldn't remember, well, much of anything. But he shook it away quickly. Wasn't worth wondering about.

Right now he had other things to take care of. First: pissing like a racehorse. Second: stretching these ridiculously tiny legs. Third: conning someone out of a snack or something, 'cause he was  _starving._

Dean dangled his legs over the edge of the bed, yawned, smacked his lips, and rubbed his eyes with his fists. Huh. Castiel was gone. Dean guessed he had finally figured out that he had more important things to be doing. Took him long enough. And no, he was not at all disappointed—stupid angel needed to be off doing angely things, not hanging out in a hospital room watching the Winchester brothers lie around.

Dean slid off the bed and shuffled into the bathroom to take care of business, then wandered out into the hall, looking for a jar of lollipops or a muffin basket or a soft-hearted nurse. The hallway wasn't exactly dark and deserted...this was a hospital, after all, always something going on...but it was dim and sparsely populated. Dean padded along in his white socks, looking all around. His stomach grumbled pitifully and he patted it, murmuring reassurances. Poor thing had been sadly neglected, as far as he could tell, but Dean was back now and he would take care of it.

He peeked into a few rooms as he passed, wondering if Ruby was on the same floor. He couldn't remember if the doctors had finally told Sam anything about what was going on with her, or if she'd just fallen off the radar. Frankly, he was okay with it either way. Except that he needed her to change him back, once she got off her butt and figured out what the hell she'd done to him. He was tired of being small, tired of the emotions constantly popcorning around in his wee brain pan, tired of having to struggle to open doors and climb up on the toilet. Though, granted, her burst of unfocused magic could have done a lot worse things to him...

Dean shuddered and kept walking. He found a nurse's station and hauled himself up to peek over the counter, making big eyes at the nice-looking black lady behind the desk. She was bent over a folder, quietly reading. "Excuse me, ma'am?" he said in his very most polite and sweet voice. It had served him well earlier in the day, before Castiel had come and he'd had to deal with this untenable situation with only his sharp wits and munchkin-sized body.

She didn't look up, didn't seem to hear him at all. Dean's forehead wrinkled, a slow churning of unease starting low in his belly. This was starting to seem all too familiar.

"Excuse me? Lady?" he tried again, louder, more petulantly. "Please? I need help."

Never mind. She wasn't so nice-looking after all. Dean dropped back down from his tip-toes and frowned deeply to himself. Being ignored was no fun at all. Was this what kids had to put up with all the time? No wonder he had so few fond memories of being this age.

Surely someone else would help him out, though. They'd been plenty happy enough to coo over him earlier. Maybe this lady was just really busy or something, probably had patients she had to take care of. Dean peeked at her over the counter again, his eyes just barely high enough, and whispered an apology that he was sure she wouldn't hear, sorry for bothering her.

Dean walked on down the hall, looking for someone else. His first problem was the scarcity of any hospital personnel, period. And anyone he did find was apparently really, really busy. Dean huffed and rubbed his grumbling stomach, keeping an eye peeled for a stray plate of brownies or something. Maybe he should just go down to the cafeteria. Even if they were locked up for the night, he could definitely pick any locks they could throw at him.

So it was without much hope that he turned a corner and saw a guy in a paramedic's uniform standing around holding up the wall. "Hello?" Dean offered, slowly shuffling closer. "You busy, mister?"

The guy straightened and turned toward him, a ready grin lighting his face. He crouched down to be more on Dean's level, but not too far. Not condescending, just meeting Dean where he was. "Not too busy for you, kiddo. Where are your parents? You wandering around here alone? That's not safe." He shook his head in mild disapproval, reaching out a hand in gentle invitation.

Ah, Dean knew how to play this one. He sidled toward the paramedic, not too eagerly, and hesitantly reached out to take his hand. "M'brother's got a owie head. I was sleeping in his room and I woke up and I'm really, really hungry. Don't know where my parents went. They're probably talking to the doctors again." He let his lower lip quiver. "They've been talking to the doctors a  _lot._  Is that bad?"

"Aw, I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, little fella." The paramedic tugged on his hand, leading him back the way he came. Dean followed willingly, stringing this out. "The doctors around here, they talk all the time. Blah blah blah, that's what they do." He pitched his voice high and silly, and Dean giggled dutifully.

"Can I have some chips?" he asked. "Or a candy bar? My stomach is making the rumblies."

The paramedic hesitated, glancing down at him, then grinned again. "Sure, I don't see why not. C'mon, I'll take you to the vending machines. Then we gotta get back to your brother, okay?"

"Okay!" Dean hurried along more happily, even putting a skip in his step. He'd known this would be easy, once he found someone who would pay attention to him. Sometimes being a midget wasn't so bad.

The guy was slenderly built, but his grip on Dean's hand was firm, strong. He led the way around several corners Dean hadn't seen before, onto the elevator to move down a couple of floors. The few people they passed barely even glanced at them. Dean guessed it must not be that unusual to see an EMT leading around a little kid in stocking feet. Or something.

That niggle deep down in his gut was starting up again, though. Something was off. He just didn't know what it was.

"Here we are!" The paramedic grabbed Dean's shoulder and shoved him through a heavy swinging door, letting go just as quickly. Dean stumbled and almost fell, but ran into a heavy cart and kept himself from falling. He straightened, panting, instantly half-panicked. This room was dark and small and crowded with janitor supplies, and there was nothing here that looked like chips or candy bars.

"Hey, this isn't the vending machine!" Dean turned to the door, childish pique heightening his voice. Not fear. He wasn't afraid, he wasn't. "What is this? Where am I?"

"You're right where I want you." The paramedic gave him that easy grin again, stepping inside and closing the door behind him, and this time his eyes were black.

Dean sucked in a quick breath, feeling his head waver, feeling it slip. And then he started to scream.


	10. Chapter 10

Sam jolted awake in the empty room, staring into the darkness. His heart was pounding in his chest and he didn't know why. A cold spot chilled the bed beside him, a place that used to be full of light and warmth...

He sat up, shrieking pain needling through his head with the movement, and looked wildly around the room. Dean, Dean was gone. Where was he? Was he all right?

Was that all it took to rouse Sam from a sound sleep into panicked wakefulness, just the absence of his brother at his side? Big, small, in his right mind or out of it, it didn't seem to matter. Sam needed to know that Dean was okay. Not knowing was like a heart attack, a sudden loss of oxygen. He couldn't take it.

Sam wrestled down the rail of the bed and swung his legs over the edge, hissing breath at the pain of moving. "Dean? Hey, buddy, where'd you go?"

No answer, and the faint tickle of unease began building to something sharper and more painful. Sam stood on wavering feet and moved toward the door. Maybe he was in the bathroom, or maybe he'd gotten bored and gone out to see if he could find anything. He didn't know about the incantation Castiel had put on him, though, he didn't know what was going on.

The bathroom door hung open, and surely Dean wouldn't have wandered off alone in the middle of the night, would he? The child Dean was too clingy and dependent to want to move around alone, and the adult Dean would know that it was foolish, wouldn't he?

Right, sure, and pigs regularly left the farm to dance competitively at the Polka Festival.

"Dean? Kiddo? You better not have wandered off by yourself, you little idiot."

"Sam."

That was not his brother's voice, and the figure striding out of the darkness wasn't Dean, either. Castiel moved so quickly he barely seemed to touch the floor, hand already reaching toward Sam. His voice was hard and urgent. "You must come with me."

"Uh, sure...?" Before Sam could react, Castiel grabbed him. A rush of air, a tingling feeling passing over every inch of his skin like tiny lightning bolts, and they were somewhere else.

Somewhere dark and cold and small, and Dean's young voice was sobbing in terror.

"Enough."

It wasn't a shout, it but had the same power as one, Castiel's voice seeming to reverberate off every wall, filling the enclosed space with angelic might. A burst of light, blowing back Sam's hair and blowing the door off its hinges, and he saw that they were in a janitorial closet. Dean, his collar held in the fist of a man in a paramedic's uniform so that his feet dangled off the floor. His face streamed with tears and snot, and a bruise was already starting to darken high on one cheek, and Sam started forward before he knew what he was doing. That man was going to die.

But Castiel got there first. "I said  _enough."_

The demon-black eyes barely had time to widen before Castiel was on him, separating him from Dean with what looked like a light push, but sent the possessed man spinning into the wall while the angel caught Dean from falling. He handed the little boy back to Sam. "Take him away from here." And he strode toward the demon, now cowering against the wall, justly terrified of the unveiled wrath of a heavenly warrior.

Small arms twined around Sam's neck and tightened until he could barely breathe, and he didn't wait any longer. Sam held the boy to his chest and got out of there, stumbling over the splintered remains of the door and a few feet away, where he leaned with his back to the wall just as his legs started to fold. The tiled floor was cold and hard against his rear and thighs, and his stupid gown was practically worthless. But Dean sobbed into his shoulder, still choked and desperate, and Sam patted and rubbed and soothed, doing everything he could think of to make it better.

"Shh, shh, it's over, you're okay. You're okay, Dean. I got you, I'm not going to let go. You're safe, you're safe."

"What did he want?" Dean whispered. "I don't know what he wanted."

Sam turned his head, trying to listen to what was going on in the closet, even while he continued holding Dean, carding through his hair, still trying to shush him. Castiel's voice rumbled through the wall, that deep tone that never seemed to fit his vessel's throat, as if he was trying to use his angelic voice through the inadequate shell of flesh without realizing it. Sam could imagine the angel holding the demon up against the wall, holding him trapped, a beetle writhing on a pin. Castiel was asking the same question as Dean.

"What do you want with him? Why did you risk coming here, attacking him? Didn't you know that I would be watching?"

The demon's laughter was low and choked, possibly by Castiel's arm across its throat. Sam couldn't make out anything it said, if it said anything at all.

Castiel's voice rose. "You will answer me!"

Sam pulled Dean's head against his chest, pressing one ear against himself and covering the other with his hand. He strained to listen, even as he tried to prevent Dean from hearing anything but the harried sound of Sam's heartbeat.

Castiel began to chant something, each word bitten off, sharp enough to cut. It must be the angels' own language, because Sam could not understand a word. But he could hear the demon groaning and struggling, and he knew that it was some sort of compulsion. A cry wrenched free of the man's lips, and then he began to speak in a ragged burst of words.

"Don't you know?" The words slithered out of the possessed man's mouth like innumerable snakes, each syllable bearing a forked tongue and a hiss. "Didn't they tell you? Dean Winchester must be stopped. Dean Winchester must be killed. This scheme of ours was complicated and top-heavy, that I grant you, but it almost succeeded. Would have done without you disobeying orders to leave your post and come back here, foolish God-thing. Your superiors will be most displeased, I have no doubt. Don't your feathers weigh heavy on you today, little angel? Soon they will drag you down into the Pit."

Sam held his breath.

"What did you do?" Castiel demanded.

"Isn't it obvious?" Again the foul creature laughed, and Sam's skin crawled at the sound. "We attacked Winchester's brother, made him unable to defend himself or anyone else. We channeled our magic through the anger of the one who calls herself Ruby and turned our enemy into a helpless, puling thing we could kill easily. We bided our time, and when we grew impatient, we attacked Ruby and began to war on the other side of the globe so that you would be forced to leave. We deepened the spell you laid on Winchester to make him wholly invisible and lured him off alone. And if you had come two seconds later, we would have already killed him."

Sam shuddered and ducked his head against Dean's shaggy, damp hair, breathing deep. It hadn't happened, it hadn't worked. Dean was okay, he was alive and warm in Sam's arms, still crying and shaking and undoubtedly traumatized, but alive. All because Castiel liked him and disobeyed orders and came back when he shouldn't have.

"We will not stop," the demon bit out, still under the angel's compulsion to speak. "This was only one plan of many. We failed in the past and today, but not again. Next time, Winchester will die."

Castiel's voice trembled a bit, still utterly calm, but Sam could hear the thin edge of emotion underneath. Not fear. Rage. "You keep saying 'we.' Who are you? How many demons were involved in this plot?"

"We are legion."

Silence now from Dean's angel, only his harsh breathing telling Sam that Castiel was still there.

"We are legion," the demon repeated, chanting. "We are legion, we are many, we will not stop, we will not stop. Dean Winchester will die and we will laugh, we will laugh. We are legion, we are legion, we are many."

"Enough," Castiel gasped. "Enough. You've said enough. We're done."

A flare of light shone out of the broken door, and the demon emitted one final, choking cry. Then Sam heard the body thud to the floor, one thump, another, knees and then torso. He held his breath and cinched Dean's limp weight even tighter against his body. After a moment, Castiel emerged into the hall, hair even more wildly disheveled than usual, his eyes round and his breathing fast. "We have to get out of this place."

"If it's the last thing we ever do?" Sam asked, then choked back a hysterical giggle. Channeling Dean, of course, when his brother was unable to make the smartass remarks himself.

Castiel crouched down beside them, placing one hand on Dean's back. "We're not safe here. They know where we are, and I don't know how many I can fight alone."

"What about the other angels?" Sam asked. "They'll come to protect Dean, won't they? He's important. You raised him from Hell. God has work for him." He could hear his voice rising to a shrill and couldn't stop himself.

Castiel just stared at him, his blue eyes far too wide, too uncertain. "I don't know, Sam. I don't know if they'll come."

Sam slammed his fist back against the wall, immediately sorry when Dean flinched violently in the circle of his arm. "Why? Why is this happening? Why is Dean important, and yet not important enough? Why don't you  _know?"_

And Castiel flinched, too. "Until very recently, it was enough for me to simply trust. I was told that Dean was important and I knew it was so. Reasons were never necessary."

"And now?" Sam demanded. "Now?"

Castiel caressed Dean's back, trying to soothe his still-frantic sobbing. He placed his other hand on Sam's shoulder, for the same purpose, and Sam was not ashamed to know that he needed it. "Now, we have to get out of here," Castiel said firmly. "Will you come? Will you trust me one more time?"

Dean was slowly calming, surrounded on all sides by Sam and Castiel, his hitched breathing beginning to fade to erratic hiccups. Sam hugged him tight and looked down the empty, deserted hall, knowing that soon it would be full of people who had heard the shouting, the noise, and finally come to investigate.

"I will. I'll trust you one more time."

Castiel helped him to his feet, took Dean into his own arms when Sam faltered, and they fled.


	11. Chapter 11

Castiel led the way to the Impala, half-running, constantly holding himself back to keep pace with Sam's limping gait. Once there, he opened the passenger side door with one hand, still holding Dean with the other arm, and prodded Sam down to sit before lowering the little boy into his ready grip. When Castiel started to draw back, though, something was snagged, holding him still. He looked down and saw Dean's hand fisted in his sleeve, big eyes staring up at him pleadingly even as his other arm wrapped around Sam's neck.

"I'm not leaving, Dean," he said, making his voice low, smooth, reassuring. "I know you are still upset, but I need to drive the car, and I can't do that and hold you at the same time."

By the saints, that statement sounded...really familiar.

Sam blinked up at him in bleary astonishment. "Wait... _you're_  going to drive the car? When did this happen?"

"While you were unconscious. Dean taught me."

"Huh. I bet that was...interesting."

"That's one way to describe it." Dean's fingers were still clenched in the fabric of his coat, shaking slightly with the intensity of his grip. Castiel covered the tiny hand with his own, trying to loosen the fingers gently. "Truly, Dean, I'm not going anywhere. I will stay with you until this is finished, one way or another. I will not leave you alone again."

Dean swallowed, and managed a hoarse whisper. "Pah-miss?"

Castiel nodded. "I promise."

It was an oath. He would not break it.

Dean nodded, believing, and finally released his coat. Castiel squeezed his hand in thanks, then hurried around to the driver's side. Before he started the engine, though, Sam's brain seemed to finally catch up with the situation.

"Wait, wait. We're leaving? Just like that? Where are we going to go?"

Castiel paused with his hand on the ignition. He did not have an answer. That was unlike him, and it was troubling. "Away. We are going away."

"But...but what about Ruby? We can't just leave her! She was attacked, too, and, and she might be the only one who can help with this, and, and..."

"And you want her." Castiel let his hand fall from the keys and turned in the seat to face Sam. "I know. I know you want her."

Dean had twisted around in Sam's lap so he could keep an eye on the angel, both hands now gripping Sam's neck and shoulder so tightly that Castiel could see red marks on the young man's skin under those desperate little fingers. Both Winchesters blinked at him, one with a complete lack of comprehension, the other with dawning dread.

"You...you know?"

"I know. And I know it disturbs you to think of treating a person-a woman-as disposable, not worth your trouble. But listen, Sam. You must listen to me. The creature you know as Ruby is not truly a person. It is not a woman. Whatever it once was, it surrendered all traces of humanity it once had centuries ago, including any vestige of gender. Ruby is a demon. It can look after itself."

Sam's eyes were almost tragic. He was torn, Castiel could see that, and he understood. It was difficult having more than one loyalty, especially when one of them was dubious, yet had done good by you as far as you could tell.

Another path, then. "The demon said that those who are plotting against Dean are many. Legion. I only sent one back to the Pit. We must leave before the others pick up the trail."

Sam nodded firmly and looked forward, facing ahead. He did not look at the hospital. "Right, yeah. You're right. Let's go."

Castiel started the car and very carefully backed out of the parking space. This time he didn't hit anything.

X

Ten minutes later, Sam was fidgeting, Dean was sniffling, and Castiel had no idea where he was. He had a sinking suspicion that this was going to be the usual state of affairs for quite some time.

Well, more precisely, he knew where he was in relation to the cosmos, knew the exact distance between this location and every current battlefield, knew what his brethren were doing and where he ought to be and exactly what would be needed to get there. But in terms of the human words and names for their location, he was completely without a clue. Everything was so different, being stuck on one plane, even if he'd done it voluntarily this time. And human modes of transportation were exceedingly slow and clumsy. He had a new appreciation for the Winchesters and their ability to get where and when they needed to be, if nothing else.

For the most part, Castiel had simply picked a direction and started driving that way, doing his best to choose streets and byways that weren't too busy. His driving skills still left a bit to be desired, though he was learning fast. Once they got out of the city, he would "put the pedal to metal," as Dean put it.

Well, as he used to put it. This small, frightened version of the man he knew probably didn't even know what that phrase meant.

At the thought, he glanced over at the child, aware that Dean had been quiet for far too long. That was never a good thing. The boy lay limply in his brother's arms, still gripping the thin fabric of Sam's garment, twisting it in his fingers as if to chain the Winchesters together with a flimsy shackle of cloth.

Sam was peering down at his brother. His eyes were anxious, watering still with the effects of his illness, dark and shifting in the sporadic luminescence from the streetlights outside the car, traffic signals, the neon glow of signs gleaming from diners and bars and corner shops. Long fingers trembled in Dean's hair, weaving through the sweat-damp clumps and strands. "Hey. Hey. You doing okay, kiddo?"

Dean shook viciously against him, arms quivering with effort as he tried to pull Sam even closer, even harder. After a moment his head jerked back and forth in fierce negation. He wasn't okay. He wasn't anywhere near okay.

And this, too, was completely unlike the Dean Sam and Castiel knew. This silence, this complete withdrawal. Dean  _fought._  It was an immutable truth of the universe.

Even as Castiel wondered, though, Dean turned his head against Sam's breast and looked at him, young eyes big and solemn.

"Dean?" the angel asked carefully.

The boy swallowed. "He was gonna kill me," he whispered.

It shouldn't even have been audible over the rumble of the engine, but Sam was holding the little one to his heart and Castiel was an angel, so they both heard him.

"No, no," Sam said instantly, trying to shush him, trying to press his head down to hide against Sam's chest again. He wasn't contradicting Dean, though, so much as the universe in general, shaking his head in horror at a world that would send assassins against someone so small and defenseless. That would dare wish death on his brother.

"He was," Dean repeated, more firmly. He held his head stubbornly still, not letting Sam protect him from this. "He said so. And he hit me. I knew he was gonna kill me."

Castiel looked him in the eyes, giving him the respect of the truth. "Yes. That was the demon's intention. But it did not succeed."

Dean shuddered and acquiesced to Sam's insistent tugging, the adult's hand enormous on the back of his head as he held him, a shield of flesh with every tendon standing out. More tears, quiet, sad, not of terror now but of a kind of grief. The child Dean was mourning what very well may have been his last shred of innocence, gone now with his ability to deny the shadows of the world. Castiel mourned with him.

Sam pressed a kiss into his hair. He said nothing. He understood what a lonely thing grief was.

Castiel was sorry that he hadn't let Sam drive and kept holding Dean himself. It had seemed the only sensible choice at the time, but for a second, he couldn't remember why.

"Dude!" Sam snapped, looking over at him with wide eyes. "Watch where you're going!"

Castiel frowned at him. "I am."

"You've been staring at me and Dean for like five minutes straight without even  _glancing_  at the road! How have we not crashed?" Sam's voice rose rapidly in pitch, suddenly panicked.

"I'm an angel," Castiel said, frowning slightly, still not taking his eyes away from his charges. "I can watch two things at once. Many more than that, actually, but that's not important right now."

Sam stared at him. Castiel was curious as to just how hysterical Sam could become about this.

Dean snuffled a laugh against his brother's chest, voice muffled but somehow clear. "'Sokay, Sammy. It's Cas. Cas is awesome."

"Really?" he squeaked.

"Yeah." Dean gave his shoulder a comforting pat, then snuggled down in Sam's arms and let his eyes drift shut, evidently satisfied that all was well.

In a strange way, this moment of strained levity had done the same for Castiel, too.

Sam, though, was barely keeping it together. He stared at Castiel, matching his unblinking gaze with wide-eyed intensity. "Could you...could you at least pretend to look at the road once in a while? This is really freaking me out."

"Very well." Castiel obliged, content to watch the road now that Dean seemed more at ease. They were beginning to edge out of the city, into bare empty fields dusted with frost in the pale light after midnight. "Sam, what is the name of this state?"

The young man had been gradually calming down with Castiel's apparent attentiveness, but now he stiffened again. "You don't even know  _where we are?"_

Castiel frowned at him. "Of course not. I know exactly where we are. I just don't know the name of it. Your names are so odd, and they change every other century. It's hard to keep track of."

Sam stared at him, arms reflexively tightening around his big-little brother. "Iowa, man. We're in Iowa. Just left Des Moines."

"Hmm." Castiel looked back to the road. "Don't worry. I have everything under control."

Sam took him at his word, settling down and staring out the windshield, shoulders slowly coming down from around his ears. Dean released a sniffling little wheeze, the child version of adult Dean's hearty snore. It was all very peaceful.

Castiel wished he had been telling the truth.


	12. Chapter 12

They stopped for gas at a tiny station two hours out from Des Moines, the white-halo lights visible for miles in the country dark. The store was closed but you could use a credit card to pay at the pump, and Castiel marveled at human ingenuity as he slid Ruby's platinum card through the reader. Sam took the opportunity to grab some clothes from the trunk and change in the backseat, Dean curled up asleep in the front under Castiel's coat.

Sam was still shaky and weak, hands juddering in the air and legs wobbling beneath him. It had only been a human day or so since he'd first collapsed, after all, and he obviously needed more time to recover. Castiel hoped that it wasn't going to be a problem, that Sam would hold on just a little while longer, for Dean's sake. He was pretty sure he would.

Afterward, Sam slid back into the passenger side and lifted Dean's head to rest on his thigh, fingers absently stroking through golden-brown locks as he waited for Castiel to start the engine. Castiel sat there for a moment, looking at them. The circumstances were very strange, but he felt somehow that this was the way the Winchesters were meant to be. Together. Taking care of each other. Their two forms melded together in the dark until they were one figure, breathing in sync, solid and sure. They were concrete, real,  _there_  in a way that nothing in the ephemeral bliss of Heaven ever was.

He said none of this, though, unsure if it would be appreciated. "I seem to recall you and Dean insisting, when I was a child, that it was unsafe for me to sit in the front."

Sam gave him a weary frown, head drooping back to rest against the seat. "Yeah. But...I don't want him to be alone right now."

"He's sleeping."

"I think he'll know, somehow. And I just...I don't want...I don't want him in the back. Besides  _you're_  driving, so it'll be safe as sitting in Missouri's living room, won't it? You've got all...angely stuff. Keep us safe."

Castiel nodded, staring forward out the windshield so Sam couldn't see the doubt in his eyes. He was pretty sure that these dangers were not exactly what his "angely stuff" was meant to protect against. "I'll keep us safe," he echoed, unable to say anything else.

Sam yawned, nestling his head against the vinyl. "Where're we going, anyway? 'Ve you figured it out yet?"

Castiel pondered. The mention of Missouri Mosley and the remembrance of Dean and Sam telling him to sit in the backseat had made him reach back, searching through the vague memories that remained of his time as a human child. He remembered a place, besides Missouri's living room, where he had felt safe and protected, despite how ill he was, despite the monster at the door panting for his blood.

"I think we should go see Bobby Singer. He might be able to help."

The young man nodded calmly. "Yeah, man. That sounds like a good idea."

Then he faded gently down into sleep, sweetly and simply entrusting both himself and his vulnerable brother to Castiel's protection and guidance.

Castiel accepted this for the enormous gift it was. Then he started the car and drove back into the night.

X

They didn't make it to Bobby's, not that night. The next town over had a roadblock set up on the main road, and Castiel didn't know enough to try to go around. Another human thing, another earth-bound trick, that he simply didn't understand, had never needed to understand.

The officer who leaned down next the Impala's window when Castiel pulled up to a stop was young and fresh-faced, open and trustworthy. "Sir, sorry to inconvenience you. We've had an Amber Alert, looking for a missing little boy. You have any children in the car?" He glanced over at the sleeping Winchesters, obviously aware of the small figure sprawled out on the seat between the two men, head on Sam's thigh and feet flung over Castiel's knee.

Castiel followed his gaze and frowned lightly. He could lie, he could manipulate, he could "tell stories," as Dean put it, but it made him uncomfortable. He wished Dean was awake to back him up. The elder Winchester certainly had a talent for obfuscation.

"These are my nephews, Dean and Sam," he said evenly. "Neither has been kidnapped. We're on the way to visit another relative in South Dakota."

The young fellow reddened faintly. "Sorry to ask it, but could ya just wake up the little guy so I can see his face, compare it to this picture I got? It won't take but a moment, and then he can go back to sleep."

He didn't want to do it. The boy needed his sleep. But the sooner they took care of this, the sooner they could go on their way. "As long as you are brief."

The officer nodded, and Castiel gave him a narrow look.  _"Very._  Brief."

He gulped and nodded again, more slowly. "Yes sir."

Castiel bobbed his head once in acknowledgment, then placed a hand on Dean's ankle and gently shook it. "Dean. Dean. You need to rise for a moment."

The brothers jerked awake as one, starting where they lay, then staring at Castiel with wide eyes, tense and strung with sudden anxiety. They were identical in the dark, small and wary and looking to the angel to explain, to soothe.

"A child has been kidnapped. An Amber Alert." Castiel assumed that they would understand what that meant. "The officer just needs to see that it isn't Dean."

Sam sat up, bringing Dean with him, the little boy's head and upper body still pillowed against his side and tucked under his arm. The younger Winchester stared out the windshield, taking in the police barricade, the slowly revolving red and blue lights. Dean stared at Castiel, silent and trusting, and past him at the man in the window.

A wrinkle appeared in the middle of Sam's forehead, an echoed frown for the one that appeared on his mouth. "This is...kind of an unusual response for an Amber Alert, isn't it? Is this your SOP out here?"

The young officer nodded absently, staring fixedly at a piece of paper in his hand, then at Dean. "Small town, sir. Guess we don't have much else to do."

"It's...four in the morning," Sam went on, still puzzled, now with an edge of suspicion. "You mobilized this much of your force at four in the morning on the off-chance that you might catch the guy at this one roadblock?"

The man ignored him, just turned away and raised a hand to wave at the police waiting by the barrier. "It's him! We found him!"

"What?" Sam sat up straighter, staring at the officer with wide eyes, and clutched Dean to his side.

Tension tore across Castiel's shoulders and he looked, really looked, at the people approaching their car, two men and a woman, gliding casually, light glinting off their badges and the guns they had already drawn.

"They're demons, Sam."

"No shit! Get us out of here!"

The young officer snapped around to stare at them in shock, but Castiel was already throwing the car into reverse and slamming on the accelerator. Too late. They were hemmed in, two more squad cars sliding out of an alley to block the street behind them. Castiel stepped on the brakes, and Sam kept Dean from flying into the dashboard with an arm around his torso. Good-home country folks with warm winter clothes and demon-black eyes were converging on them, at least six of them, darkness swirling in the air deeper than that caused by the lack of light. Castiel saw the lure, the fresh-faced young officer, snap upright as a whirlwind of smoke poured into him, and then he turned toward the Impala, grinning, taken, thirsty for blood.

Castiel wrenched the wheel, spinning the car around, looking for another way out. Nothing presented itself. Dean, if he was himself, would find a way, Castiel was sure. Dean would know what to do. And it wouldn't be ramming his beloved Impala into a cop car, so that was out.

But this Dean was mute, terrified, clinging to his brother with both hands. There was no help coming from that direction. And Sam's breath caught wildly in his throat, pulse trip-hammering in his jaw. Shaky and still weakened by his ordeal, powers pulled empty by the earlier attack. No help there, either.

It was up to Castiel.

"We have to find sanctuary," Castiel said. He lurched the car back again, spinning it in a tire-grinding circle, and the possessed policemen were forced to back away.

"What, like a church?" Sam asked, voice jagged with panic. "I don't see any churches, man. It's just some stupid main-street drag in a podunk little town."

Castiel pulled the Impala up on the sidewalk next to the only building that offered any kind of hope, bouncing the front right wheel over the curb. "No, like a diner."

He reached over the Winchesters to push the passenger door open, almost tearing the handle off in his careless speed. He chivvied them out the door and onto the sidewalk just as the demons began to regroup and come after them again. Sam carried Dean in his arms like a bundle of clothes, limp and unresisting. Three running steps across the concrete walk, and they slammed into the diner's glass double door.

"What now?" Sam gasped, staring down the street at the small phalanx of demons heading toward them. "I doubt we have time for me to pick the lock."

"I have it." A judicial touch of power, a flare of golden-white light almost completely shielded in Castiel's cupped palm, and the door swung inward.

They all but fell inside, the bell above the door chiming in cheerful dissonance. Sam barely held himself from falling, Dean's weight shifting in his arms but still kept steadier than Sam was keeping himself, and Castiel herded them toward the kitchen. It always seemed to happen in the kitchen, he thought briefly, bemused at his own odd thought process in the middle of a battlefield.

They stumbled to a halt in the middle of the kitchen, and Sam looked to Castiel for instructions. "What should I do? Just tell me, whatever I can do."

"Turn on all the water taps. Set it flowing. Block the drains so it runs across the floor." Castiel put action to words, already moving for the nearest sink.

Sam set Dean carefully down in the corner farthest from the door and rushed to obey. They set the water running and let it overflow, a human-made river in a room that smelled of grease and sweat. The scent of human sustenance, where people came to procure what they needed to survive. The bell above the diner's door began to chime again, announcing the arrival of more guests.

Castiel dipped his hands in the water and began to murmur the human words of ritual, too rushed to gather the grace to do it the more simple way. This way was crude, but effective.  _Exorcizo te, creatura aquæ, in nomine Dei Patris omnipotentis..._

By the time the demons reached the kitchen door, Castiel and the Winchesters stood in a spreading pool of holy water.

It wasn't going to be enough.


	13. Chapter 13

Castiel and the Winchesters stood in a spreading pool of holy water, waiting for the demons to come.

Sam hiked Dean up on his hip and grabbed Castiel's arm. "Wait, is this really what we're going to do? Stand here in a diner and fight? There's no way we can win, man. I'm barely standing and Dean's a little kid. And we didn't even grab any weapons from the Impala because we had to ditch it so fast."

Castiel tore his gaze away from the doors of the diner where the demons were pressed en masse, pounding on the glass. "No. This is not what we're going to do. It's what I'm going to do. You take Dean and go out the back."

Sam's mouth fell open. "What the... You're going to fight them alone? There are dozens of them!"

Castiel raised his chin, his face hardening, and Sam let go of his arm and took an instinctive step back from whatever he saw in Castiel's eyes. "I am angel. It's what I do. I fight demons."

"Yeah, I know you're an angel, but you're not invincible. Dean told me how you talked about your brothers dying in the fight."

The current Dean, twisted up against Sam's shoulder in a ball of quivering fear, whimpered at this. His arms squeezed tight around Sam's neck, cutting off his breath. They both paused to look at him for a moment in regret and pain, but then their eyes turned to each other again.

"I am a warrior," Castiel said, biting the words off hard between his teeth. "I am also a servant of Heaven who just disobeyed explicit orders to save you, both of you. I don't have long for this world. I will go out fulfilling my purpose."

Immense pain poured over Sam's features, surprising Castiel. He hadn't realized he meant so much to this human, the one he once thought of as "the boy with the demon blood," important to Castiel's mission only because he was Dean's brother and greatly treasured by him. But then, things had changed a great deal since that night before Halloween.

Sam didn't want him to die. Castiel swallowed, realizing that he didn't particularly want to, either. It was never something he'd worried about, before. He'd always accepted the possibility of death with open arms, knowing that if it came, it would be while he was serving God, and therefore by definition it would be a good end. Now he'd left his post, defied his commander, and gone on the run with these two human children. All guideposts had vanished and he was left floundering in the dark, uncertain of his path and suddenly, desperately afraid of what lay ahead.

But he would do what he had to do. He would sacrifice himself for these two, for the man he had raised from Hell and the brother that man valued higher than his own soul. The decision had been made without a thought, without a doubt, the second he heard Dean's cry of distress crossing to him through the ether when a demon seized him in the hospital. Now all Castiel could do was try to ensure that his sacrifice would not be in vain.

He reached out and grabbed Sam's shoulder, holding tight and hard, trying to will some of his own strength into the trembling human. "You must go, Sam. Take your brother and run as fast as you can. Keep him safe. I'll hold them off. I'll hold them all off. But you must go."

"Uncle Cas!"

Dean's voice was still a pained whimper, but he had turned from Sam's shoulder, stretching out to Castiel with both hands, his fingers spreading and squeezing as if to draw the angel to him through the air. Tears tracked down his cheeks, leaving clear trails through the grime he'd accumulated somewhere along the way. His face was young and innocent and utterly heartbroken, and Castiel found it very difficult to look at him and not turn away.

Dean knew what was going on. Even with the mind of a child, he understood that Castiel was leaving him forever. Too many people had already left this boy forever. He couldn't stand to lose another one.

"Dean." Castiel heard the pain in his own voice and was distantly astonished.

The glass of the doors was beginning to crack. Without looking, Castiel held a hand behind himself, reinforcing the flimsy barrier with the light of his will. It wouldn't hold forever, but perhaps it would give him enough time to say good-bye.

"Dean, I'm sorry," Castiel said. "I don't wish to cause you more loss. That was never my intention. Perhaps it is my fault for letting us become too close, for making you care too much, allowing myself to care for you. If I had not come to you with my doubts on that long-ago park bench, forcing myself into your companionship...if I had not placed myself in your keeping when I was injured and weak... Perhaps this decision would not pain you now. I'm so very, very sorry, Dean. But I have do this. I have to keep you safe."

Sam clutched the boy tighter, trying to draw him back, but Dean persisted in stretching for his "uncle," tiny fingers grasping in the air. Castiel looked to Sam, too, including him in his apology. He'd come to care for the younger brother as well, and he'd never meant to hurt him any more than he'd meant to hurt Dean.

"No, Cas!" Dean cried, his high young voice rising to a wail. "No, no!" There was anger there, as well as fear and pain, and Castiel tried to harden his heart against it so that he could do what must be done. It was almost impossible.

"Uncle Cas, you pomissed!" Sam wavered on his feet, jolting Dean back toward him, and Dean had to re-balance himself. One hand darted back to fist in the fabric over Sam's shoulder, holding his body steady in Sam's arms. The other hand continued to reach for Castiel. "You pomissed!" More anger, forcing more tears out to run down his cheeks, hot and stinging.

Castiel blinked, drawing back. He didn't know what the child was talking about. "What...what do you mean?"

"You pomissed me!" If Dean had been standing, he would have stamped his foot in childish rage, in fury at the universe and at Castiel for refusing to play fair. Since he could not, he just gripped Sam's shirt in his hard little fist and gave it an insistent tug. "You said you wouldn't leave me again. You said you would stay until this was over! You pomissed, Uncle Cas! It's not nice to break pomisses!"

Castiel blinked again, staring back at the boy in wordless astonishment. Sam huffed a breathless laugh and hiked Dean up on his shoulder again. "That's true, Cas. You promised him you would stay with us until this is over. You can't give up now."

Castiel transferred his gaze to Sam, still unable to speak. He had been trapped by a little boy, by the words from his own lips. He hadn't thought that he, an angel of the Lord with all the resources of Heaven at his back, would so easily be bested by a guileless child.

"Sam, I don't know what else to do." Castiel spread his hands, helpless, empty. He had not yet drawn his sword, though he'd intended to do so as soon as the Winchesters were out of sight. He hadn't wanted to frighten Dean with that long, sharp blade of bright metal.

"You disobeyed your orders," Sam said. "You rebelled. That means you're no longer bound by Heaven, right? Dean told me that you said you didn't have permission, earlier, to fix all this, to use your full power to help us. You were constrained and limited by what your commanders would allow. Now you've left all that behind. You can do whatever you like, whatever you deem necessary. If Heaven would give you permission to do anything, anything at all, to help us out of this mess, what would you do?"

Castiel considered briefly, looking down at the floor. Then he raised his head, eyes narrowed and lips tight. "Since Dean will not permit me to stay and fight, to sacrifice myself, there is only one other option."

Sam nodded encouragingly. He took a step closer to Castiel, closing the distance between them so that Dean could finally, finally grab the loose fabric of Castiel's overcoat and hold on. The boy rested between them, one fist gripping Sam, the other tethering them both to Castiel. Dean looked between their faces, the tears slowing, stopping, as he sensed the change in the atmosphere. There was hope now, a dawning understanding, a sense of power and purpose beginning to crackle around the angel.

"What option is that?" Sam asked, though the tone of his voice said that he already knew the answer. He was just talking to goad Castiel, to keep nudging him along the path to action, and his voice was sure and steady. He knew that he and Dean had already succeeded. Castiel was on their side now, completely and irrevocably.

"Flight."

Castiel reached up with both hands, only slightly impeded by Dean's hand twisted in his sleeve, and touched the Winchesters on their foreheads with two fingers each. Just as he touched down, the glass shattered and the diner filled with the howls of enraged demons.

The diner vanished, and they were in another place.


End file.
